N  <ggsKg» 


WITH  THESE  WORDS  HE  WAS  OFF  ; 


MTE 

CORSICA. 


NEW    YORK 
HARPER  &  BROTHERS  PUBLISHERS 


BY  JOHN  KENDRICK  BANGS. 

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Ali  rights  reserved. 


•  - 


91S7V2 


W* 

\ 


1TED  BY 


W.M£VlCIOR 


\ 


CONTENTS 


CHAP.  PAGE 

i.  INFANCY:  CORSICA  TO  BRIENNE   ...  i 

II.    BRIENNE          19 

III.  PARIS — VALENCE — LYONS — CORSICA  .       .  39 

IV.  SARDINIA— TOULON— NICE — PARIS — BAR- 

RAS — JOSEPHINE 59 

V.    ITALY — MILAN — VIENNA — VENICE        .  8 1 

VI.    MONTEBELLO — PARIS — EGYPT    ....  104 
VII.    THE     igTH     BRUMAIRE — CONSUL  —  THE 

TUILERIES — CAROLINE 130 

VIII.    THE  ALPS — THE   EMPIRE — THE  CORONA 
TION      149 

IX.    THE   RISE   OF   THE   EMPIRE 171 

X.    THE   FALL   OF  THE   EMPIRE 196 

XI.    ELBA — THE     RETURN — WATERLOO — ST. 

HELENA 220 

XII.    THE  END 245 


PAGE  ILLUSTRATIONS 

PAGE 
"WITH    THESE    WORDS    HE    WAS    OFF".        Frontispiece 

"  '  GOT    WHAT    IN    THE    NECK  ?'     ASKED    TAL 
LEYRAND  " 41 

HE  POUNDED  VIGOROUSLY 69 

" 'THERE'S  NOTHING  LIKE  MUSIC'"  ...  83 
"'I  RISE  TO  EXPRESS  THE  THANKS  OF  A 

HUNGRY  MAN  " 133 

"'GENTLEMEN,  I  ADMIRE  YOU  PERSONALLY 

VERY  MUCH  '  " 141 

"  '  WE  SIMPLY  LAY  DOWN  ON  OUR  ARMS 

AND    SLID  '" l6l 

"THE  EMPEROR  SEIZED  THE  DIADEM  WITH 

HIS  OWN  HANDS  " 167 

"'MURAT  MADE  A  FLYING  WEDGE  WITH 

OUR  CENTRE-RUSH'" 181 

"  HATTERS  AND  LAUNDRESSES  WHOM  HE  HAD 

MADE  DUKES  AND  DUCHESSES  "  ...  193 

"  '  CLOSE  THE  DOOR,  FOUCHE  '  "      ....     2OI 


XII  PAGE   ILLUSTRATIONS 

PAGE 

A  FEW  OF  THE  ONLY  WOMEN  HE  EVER  LOVED  2O3 

THE  RETREAT  FROM  MOSCOW     .    .     .     ,    .  211 

BONAPARTE  ABDICATED .     .  217 

"  '  THEY'RE  LIKE  A  PICTURE  !'  HE  CRIED,  EN 
THUSIASTICALLY  " 235 

BATTLE.  OF  WATERLOO  .    .     .    .  ...    .     .    .  239 

"HE  PASSED  AWAY  IN  THE  NIGHT"    ...  253 

"  '  WHAT  IS  THIS  NOISE?'  ASKED  APOLLYON  "  257 
"NAPOLEON  MADE  HIMSELF  MASTER  OF  THE 

KINGDOM" 263 


INFANCY  :    CORSICA   TO    BRIENNE 


1769-1779 


APOLEOM'S  -fatKer,  /Charted  Bona 
parte,  was  the  honored  progeni 
tor  of  tr^it^en^hiWrerif  ot'  whbrh 
the  man  who  subsequently  be 
came  the  Emperor  of  the  French, 
by  some  curious  provision  of 
fate,  was  the  second.  That  the 
infant  Napoleon  should  have  fol 
lowed  rather  than  led  the  pro 
cession  is  so  foreign  to  the  nature  of  the 
man  that  many  worthy  persons  unfamil- 


2  MR.  BONAPARTE   OF   CORSICA 

iar  with  the  true  facts  of  history  have  be 
lieved  that  Joseph  was  a  purely  apocryphal 
infant,  or,  as  some  have  suggested,  merely 
an  adopted  child  ;  but  that  Napoleon  did 
upon  this  occasion  content  himself  with 
second  place  is  an  incontrovertible  fact. 
Nor  is  it  entirely  unaccountable.  It  is 
hardly  to  be  supposed  that  a  true  military 
genius,  such  as  Napoleon  is  universally  con 
ceded  to  have  been,  would  plunge  into  the 
midst  of  a  great  battle  without  first  having 
acquainted  himself  with  the  possibilities  of 
the  future.  A  reconnoitre  of  the  field  of 
ax-tidiii  .3$  the-  first  #uty  of  a  Successful  com 
mander;  and  hence  it  was  that  Napoleon, 
not  wishing  to  rush  wholly  unprepared  into 
the  battle  of  life,  assigned  to  his  brother 
Joseph  the  arduous  task  of  first  entering 
into  the  world  to  see  how  the  land  lay. 
Joseph  having  found  everything  to  his  sat 
isfaction,  Napoleon  made  his  appearance  in 
the  little  island  of  Corsica,  recently  come 


INFANCY:  CORSICA  TO  BRIENNE 

under  French  domina 
tion,  on  the  i 5th  day 
of  August,  1769.  Had 
he  been  born  two 
months  earlier,  we  are 
told,  he  would  have 
been  an  Italian.  Had 
he  been  born  a  hun 
dred  years  later,  it  is  difficult  to  say  what  he 
would  have  been.  As  it  was,  he  was  born  a 
Frenchman.  It  is  not  pleasant  to  contem 
plate  what  the  man's  future  would  have 
been  had  he  been  born  an  Italian,  nor  is  it 
easy  to  picture  that  future  with  any  confi 
dence  born  of  certainty.  Since  the  days  of 
Cassar,  Italy  had  not  produced  any  great 
military  commander,  and  it  is  not  likely 
that  the  powers  would  have  changed  their 
scheme,  confirmed  by  sixteen  centuries  of 
observance,  in  Napoleon's  behalf  —  a  fact 
which  Napoleon  himself  realized,  for  he 
often  said  in  his  latter  days,  with  a  shud- 


der  :  "  I  hate  to  think 
how    inglorious     I 
should  have  become  had 
I    been    born    two    months 
earlier    and    entered    the 
world   as   an    Italian.     I 
should  have  been  anoth- 
'   er  Joseph — not  that  Jo 
seph  is  not  a  good  man, 
but    he  is    not    a    great 
man.      Ah!    /    Bourrienne,  we  cannot  be 
too  careful  in    /  the  selection  of  our  birth 
days." 

It  is  the    /  testimony  of  all   who   knew 
him  in  his    /  infancy   that    Napoleon    was 
a    good    /  child.     He  was  obedient   and 
respectful   to   his   mother,  and 
sometimes    at    night    when,    on 
account  of  some  indigesti 
ble    quality  of   his   food 
or  other  cause,  it  was  nec 
essary    for    his    father    to 


INFANCY:  CORSICA  TO  BRIENNE 


make  a  series  of  forced  marches  up  and 
down  the  spacious  nursery  in  the  beautiful 
home  at  Ajaccio,  holding  the  infant  warrior 
in  his  arms,  certain  premonitions  of  his 
son's  future  career  dawned  upon  the  parent 
mind.  His  anguish  was  voiced  in  com 
manding  tones ;  his  wails,  like  his  subse 
quent  addresses  to  his  soldiers,  were  short, 
sharp,  clear,  and  decisive,  nor  would  he 
brook  the  slightest 
halt  in  these  mid 
night  marches  until 
the  difficulties  which 
stood  in  his  path  had 
been  overcome.  His 
confidence  in  himself 
at  this  early  period 
was  remarkable. 
Quick  to  make  up 
his  mind,  he  was  te 
nacious  of  his  pur 
pose  to  the  very  end. 


MR.  BONAPARTE   OF   CORSICA 

It  is  related 
that  when  barely 
seven  months  old, 
while  sitting  in 
his  nurse's  lap, 
by  means  of  signs 
which  she  could 
not  fail  to  com 
prehend,  he  ex 
pressed  the  de 
sire,  which,  indeed,  is  characteristic  of  most 
healthy  children  of  that  age,  to  possess 
the  whole  of  the  outside  world,  not  to  men 
tion  the  moon  and  other  celestial  bodies. 
Reaching  his  little  hands  out  in  the  di 
rection  of  the  Continent,  lying  not  far 
distant  over  the  waters  of  the  Mediterra 
nean,  he  made  this  demand  ;  and  while,  of 
course,  his  desire  was  not  granted  upon 
the  instant,  it  is  the  testimony  of  history 
that  he  never  lost  sight  of  that  cherished 
object. 


INFANCY:    CORSICA    TO    RRIENNE  ^ 

After  providing  Napoleon  with  eleven 
other  brothers  and  sisters,  Charles  Bona 
parte  died,  and  left  his  good  and  faithful 
wife  Letitia  to  care  for  the  future  greatness 
of  his  family,  a  task  rendered  somewhat  the 
more  arduous  than  it  might  otherwise  have 
been  by  the  lack  of  income ;  but  the  good 
woman,  who  had  much  of  Napoleon's  nat 
ure  in  her  make-up,  was  equal  to  the  occa 
sion.  She  had  her  sons  to  help  her,  and 
was  constantly  buoyed  up  by  the  expressed 
determination  of  her  second  child  to  place 
her  beyond  the  reach  of  want  in  that  future 
day  when  the  whole  world  lay  grovelling  at 
his  feet. 

"  Do  not  worry,  mother,"  Napoleon  said. 
"  Let  Joseph  and  Lucien  and  Louis  and 
Jerome  and  the  girls  be  educated ;  as  for  me, 
I  can  take  care  of  myself.  I,  who  at  the 
age  of  three  have  mastered  the  Italian  lan 
guage,  have  a  future  before  me.  I  will  go 
to  France,  and  then—" 


8  MR.  BONAPARTE  OF   CORSICA 

"  Well !  what  then  ?"  his  mother  asked. 

'•  Aous  verrons  /"  Napoleon  replied,  turn 
ing  on  his  heel  and  walking  out  of  the  house 
whistling  a  military  march. 

From  this  it  will  be  seen  that  even  in 
his  infancy  Napoleon  had  his  ideas  as 
to  his  future  course.  Another  anecdote, 
which  is  taken  from  the  unpublished  me 
moirs  of  the  grandson  of  one  of  his  Cor- 
sican  nurses,  illustrates  in  an  equally  vivid 
manner  how,  while  a  mere  infant  in  arms, 
he  had  a  passion  for  and  a  knowledge 
of  military  terms.  Early  one  morning 
the  silence  was  broken  by  the  incipient 
Emperor  calling  loudly  for  assistance. 
His  nurse,  rushing  to  him,  discovered  that 
the  point  of  a  pin  was  sticking  into  his 
back.  Hastily  removing  the  cause  of  the 

disturbance,  she  endeavored  to  comfort 

him. 

"  Never  mind,  sweetheart,"  she  said, 
if    "  it's  only  a  nasty  pin." 


INFANCY:  CORSICA  TO  BRIENNE         9 

"  Nasty  pin  !"  roared  Napoleon.  "  By  the 
revered  name  of  Paoli,  I  swear  I  thought  it 
was  a  bayonet !" 

It  was,  no  doubt,  this  early  realization  of 
the  conspicuous  part  he  was  to  play  in  the 
history  of  his  time  that  made  the  youthful 
Bonaparte  reserved  of  manner,  gloomy,  and 
taciturn,  and  prone  to  irritability.  He  felt 
within  him  the  germ  of  future  greatness,and 
so  became  impatient  of  restraint.  He  com 
pletely  dominated  the  household.  Joseph, 
his  elder  brother,  became  entirely  subject  to 
the  imperious  will  of  the  future  Emperor ; 
and  when  in  fancy  Napoleon  dreamed  of 
those  battles  to  come,  Joseph  was  always 
summoned  to  take  an  active  part  in  the  im 
aginary  fight.  Now  he  was  the  bridge  of 
Lodi,  and,  lying  flat  on  his  back,  was  forced 
to  permit  his  bloodthirsty  brother  to  gallop 
across  him,  shouting  words  of  inspiration  to 
a  band  of  imaginary  followers ;  again  he  was 
forced  to  pose  as  a  snow-clad  Alp  for  Napo-  f 


> 


10 


MR.  BONAPARTE   OF   CORSICA 


Icon  to  climb,  followed  laboriously  by  Lu- 
cien  and  Jerome  and  the  other  children.  It 
cannot  be  supposed  that  this  was  always 
pleasing  to  Joseph,  but  he  never  faltered 
when  the  demand  was  made  that  he  should 
act,  because  he  did  not  dare. 

"You  bring  up  the  girls,  mother,"  Napo 
leon  had  said.    "  Leave  the  boys  to  me  and 
I'll  make  kings  of  them  all,  if  I  have  to  send 
them    over   to    the    United 
States,  where   all   men   will 
soon    be    potentates,    and 
their  rulers  merely  servants 
chosen     to    do    their    bid 
ding." 

Once,  Joseph  venturing 
to  assert  himself  as  the  eld 
est  son,  Napoleon  smiled 
grimly. 

"  And  what,  pray,  does 
that  mean  ?"  he  asked, 
scornfully. 


INFANCY  :    CORSICA   TO    BRIENNE 


I  I 


"  That  I  and  not  you  am  the  head  of  the 
family,"  replied  Joseph. 

"Very  well,"  said  Napoleon,  rushing  be 
hind  him,  and,  by  a  rapidly  conceived  flank 
movement,  giving  Joseph  a  good  sound  kick. 
"  How  does  the  head  of  the  family  like  the 
foot  of  the  family  ?  Don't  ever  prate  of  ac 
cidents  of  birth  to  me." 

From  that  time  on  Joseph  never  mur 
mured  again,  but  obeyed  blindly  his  broth- 


12  MR.   BONAPARTE   OF   CORSICA 

er's  slightest  behest.  He  would  have  per 
mitted  Napoleon  to  mow  him  down  with 
grape-shot  without  complaint  rather  than 
rebel  and  incur  the  wrath  which  he  knew 
would  then  fall  upon  his  head. 

At  school  the  same  defiance  of  restraint 
and  contempt  for  superior  strength  charac 
terized  Napoleon.  Here,  too,  his  taciturn 
nature  helped  him  much.  If  he  were  asked 
a  question  which  he  could  not  answer,  he 
would  decline  to  speak,  so  that  his  instruct 
ors  were  unable  to  state  whether  or  not  he 
was  in  ignorance  as  to  the  point  under  dis 
cussion,  and  could  mark  him  down  consci 
entiously  as  contumelious  only.  Hence  it 
was  that  he  stood  well  in  his  studies,  but 
was  never  remarkable  for  deportment.  His 
favorite  plaything,  barring  his  brother  Jo 
seph,  was  a  small  brass  cannon  that  weighed 
some  thirty  odd  pounds,  and  which  is  still 
to  be  seen  on  the  island  of  Corsica.  Of 
this  he  once  said :  "  I'd  rather  hear  its  re- 


INFANCY:  CORSICA  TO  BRIENNE       13 

port  than  listen  to  a  German  band ;  though 
if  I  could  get  them  both  playing  at  the  same 
time  there'd  be  one  German  band  less  in 
the  world." 

This  remark  found  its  parallel  later  on 
when,  placed  by  Barras  in  command  of  the 
defenders  of  the  Convention  against  the  at 
tacks  of  the  Sectionists,  Napoleon  was  asked 
by  the  chairman  of  the  Assembly  to  send 
them  occasional  reports  as  to  how  matters 
progressed.  His  reply  was  terse. 

"Legislators,"  he  said,  "you  ask  me  for 
an  occasional  report.  If  you  listen  you  will 
hear  the  report  of  my  cannon.  That  is  all 
you'll  get,  and  it  will  be  all  you  need.  I 
am  here.  I  will  save  you." 

"  It  is  a  poor  time  for  jokes,"  said  a  rep 
resentative. 

"  It  is  a  worse  time  for  paper  reports," 
retorted   Napoleon.      "  It  would   take   me       ~ 
longer  to  write  out  a  legislative  report  than    «* 
it  will  to  clean  out  the  mob.    Besides,  I  want 


it  understood  at  this  end  of  my  career  that 
autograph-hunters  are  going  to  get  K 

As  he  turned,  Barras  asked  him  as  to  his 
intentions. 

••  Where  are  you  going  ?"  he  asked. 


INFANCY:    CORSICA  TO   BR1ENNE          15 

"  To  make  a  noise  in  the  world,"  cried 

Napoleon  ;  "  a  u  revoir" 

That  he  had  implanted  in  him  the  essen 
tial  elements  of  a  great  fighter  his  school- 
companions  were  not  long  in  finding  out. 
When  not  more  than  five  years  of  age  he 
fell  in  love  with  a  little  schoolmate,  and,  be 
ing  jeered  at  for  his  openly  avowed  senti 
ments,  he  threatened  to  thrash  the  whole 
school,  adding  to  the  little  maiden  that  he 
would  thrash  her  as  well  unless  she  re 
turned  his  love,  a  line  of  argument  which 
completely  won  her  heart,  particularly  in 
view  of  the  fact  that  he  proved  his  sincerity 
by  fulfilling  that  part  of  his  assumed  obli 
gations  which  referred  to  the  subjugation 
of  the  rest  of  the  school.  It  was  upon  this 
occasion  that  in  reference  to  his  careless 
ness  of  dress,  his  schoolmates  composed  the 
rhyme, 


di  niezza  calzetta 
Fa  ramorc  a  Giacomitxtla." 


16  MR.   BONAPARTE  OF   CORSICA 

which,  liberally  translated,  means, 

"  Hi  !   Look  at  Nap  !   His  socks  down  off  his  shin, 
Is  making  love  to  little  Giacomin" 

To  this  Napoleon,  on  the  authority  of  the  Me 
moirs  of  his  Father  s  Hired  Man,  retorted : 

' '  /  would  advise  you,  be  not  indiscreet, 
Or  I  will  yank  YOUR  socks  right  off  your  feet." 

All  of  which  goes  to  show  that  at  no  time 
in  his  youth  was  he  to  be  trifled  with.  In 
poetry  or  a  pitched  battle  he  was  quite 
equal  to  any  emergency,  and  his  compan 
ions  were  not  long  in  rinding  it  out. 

So  passed  the  infancy  of  Mr.  Bonaparte, 
of  Corsica.  It  was,  after  all,  much  like  the 
extreme  youth  of  most  other  children.  In 
everything  he  undertook  he  was  facile  prin- 
ceps,  and  in  nothing  that  he  said  or  did  is 
there  evidence  that  he  failed  to  appreciate 
what  lay  before  him.  A  visitor  to  the  family 
once  ventured  the  remark,  "I  am  sorry, 


INFANCY:  CORSICA  TO  BRIENNE 


Napoleon,  for  you  little  Corsi- 
cans.  You  have  no  Fourth  of 
July  or  Guy  Fawkes  Day  to  cele 
brate." 

"  Oh,  as  for  that,"  said  Napo 
leon,  "I  for  one  do  not  mind.  I 
will  make  national  holidays  when 
I  get  to  be  a  man,  and  at  pres 
ent  I  can  get  along  without  them. 
What's  the  use  of  Fourth  of  July 
when  you  can  shoot  off  fireworks 
every  day  ?" 

It  was  a  pertinent  question, 
and  the  visitor  departed  much  impressed 
with  the  boy's  precocity,  which  was  ren 
dered  doubly  memorable  by  Napoleon's 
humor  in  discharging  fifteen  pounds  of 
wadding  from  his  cannon  into  the  visitor's 
back  as  he  went  out  of  the  front  gate. 

At  the  age  of  six  Napoleon  put  aside  all 
infantile  pleasures,  and  at  eight  assumed  all 
the  dignity  of  that  age.  He  announced  his 


l8  MR.  BONAPARTE  OF   CORSICA 

intention  to  cease  playing  war  with  his 
brother  Joseph. 

"  I  am  no  longer  a  child,  Joseph,"  he  said ; 
"  I  shall  no  longer  thrash  you  in  play.  Here 
after  I  shall  do  it  in  sober  earnest." 

Which  no  doubt  is  why,  in  1779,  Napoleon 
having  stuck  faithfully  to  his  promise,  Jo 
seph  heartily  seconded  his  younger  brother's 
demand  that  he  should  leave  Corsica  and 
take  a  course  of  military  instruction  at  Bri- 
enne. 

"  I  shall  no  doubt  miss  my  dear  brother 
Napoleon,"  Joseph  said  to  his  mother  ;  "but 
I  would  not  stand  in  the  way  of  his  ad 
vancement.  Let  him  go,  even  though  by 
his  departure  I  am  deprived  of  all  opportu 
nity  to  assist  him  in  his  pleasing  games  of 
war." 


BRI  ENN'E 


S  we  have  seen,  the  young  Corsican 
was  only  ten  years  of  age  when, 
through  the  influence  of  Count 
Marbceuf,  an  old  friend  of  the  Bo 
naparte  family,  he  was  admitted  to 
the  military  school  at  Brienne.  Those  who 
were  present  at  the  hour  of  his  departure 
from  home  say  that  Napoleon  would  have 
wept  like  any  other  child  had  he  yielded 
to  the  impulses  of  his  heart,  and  had  he 
not  detected  a  smile  of  satisfaction  upon 
the  lips  of  his  brother  Joseph.  It  was  this 


20  MR.  BONAPARTE   OF   CORSICA 

smile  that  drove  all  tender  emotions  from 
his  breast.  Taking  Joseph  to  one  side,  he 
requested  to  know  the  cause  of  his  mirth. 

"I  was  thinking  of  something  funny," 
said  Joseph,  paling  slightly  as  he  observed 
the  stern  expression  of  Napoleon's  face. 

"  Oh,  indeed,"  said  Napoleon  ;  "  and  what 
was  that  something  ?  I'd  like  to  smile  my 
self." 

"  H'm  !—  ah  —  why,"  faltered  Joseph,  "  it 
may  not  strike  you  as  funny,  you  know. 
What  is  a  joke  for  one  man  is  apt  to  be 
a  serious  matter  for  another,  particularly 
when  that  other  is  of  a  taciturn  and  irri 
table  disposition." 

"Very  likely," said  Napoleon,  dryly;  "and 
sometimes  what  is  a  joke  for  the  man  of 
mirth  is  likewise  in  the  end  a  serious  matter 
for  that  same  humorous  person.  This  may 
turn  out  to  be  the  case  in  the  present  emer 
gency.  What  was  the  joke  ?  If  I  do  not 


BRIENNE  21 

find  it  a  humorous 
joke,  I'll  give  you  a 
parting  caress  which 
you  won't  forget  in  a 
hurry." 

"I  was  only  think 
ing,"  said  Joseph,  un 
easily,  "that  it  is  a 
very  good  thing  for  that 
little  ferry-boat  you  are 
going  away  on  that 
you  are  going  on  it." 

Here  Joseph  smiled  weakly,  but  Napo 
leon  was  grim  as  ever. 

"Well,"  he  said,  impatiently,  "what  of 
that  ?" 

"  Why,"  returned  Joseph,  "  it  seemed  to 
me  that  such  a  tireless  little  worker  as  the 
boat  is  would  find  it  very  restful  to  take  a 
Nap." 

For  an  instant  Napoleon  was  silent. 

"  Joseph,"  said  he,  as  he  gazed  solemnly 


22 


MR.  BONAPARTE   OF   CORSICA 


out  of  the  window,  "  I  thank  you  from  the 
bottom  of  my  heart  for  this.  I  had  had 
regrets  at  leaving  home.  A  moment  ago  I 
was  ready  to  break  down  for  the  sorrow  of 
parting  from  my  favorite  Alp,  from  my 
home,  from  my  mother,  and  my  little  brass 
cannon  ;  but  now — now  I  can  go  with  a 
heart  steeled  against  emotion.  If  you  are 
going  in  for  humor  of  that  kind,  I'm  glad 
I'm  going  away.  Farewell." 

With  this,  picking  Joseph  up  in  his  arms 
and  concealing  him  beneath  the  sofa  cush 
ions,  Napoleon  imprinted  a  kiss  upon  his 
mother's  cheek,  rushed  aboard  the  craft 
that  was  to  bear  him  to  fame,  and  was  soon 
but  a  memory  in  the  little  house  at  Ajaccio. 

"  Parting  is  such  sweet  sorrow,"  murmured 
Joseph,  as  he  watched  the  little  vessel 
bounding  over  the  turquoise  waters  of  the 
imprisoned  sea.  "  I  shall  miss  him ;  but 
there  are  those  who  wax  fat  on  grief,  and,  if 
I  know  myself,  I  am  of  that  brand." 


BRIENNE 


23- 


Arrived  at  Paris,  Napoleon  was  naturally 
awe-stricken  by  the  splendors  of  that  won 
derful  city. 

"  I  shall  never  forget  the  first  sight  I  had 
of  Paris,"  he  said,  years  later,  when  speaking 
of  his  boyhood  to  Madame  Junot,  with 
whom  he  was  enjoying  a  tete-a-tete  in  the 
palace  at  Versailles.  "I  wondered  if  I 
hadn't  died  of  sea-sickness  on  the  way 
over,  as  I  had  several  times  wished  I 
might,  and  got  to  heaven.  I  didn't  know 
how  like  the  other  place  it  was  at  that  time, 
you  see.  It  was  like  an  enchanted  land,  a 


24  MR.  BONAPARTE  OF  CORSICA 

World's  Fair  forever,  and 
the  prices  I  had  to  pay  for 
things  quite  carried  out  the 
World's  Fair  idea.  They 
were  enormous.  Weary  with 
walking,  for  instance,  I  hired 
a  fiacre  and  drove  about  the 
city  for  an  hour,  and  it  cost 
me  fifty  francs ;  but  I  fell  in 
with  pleasant  enough  peo 
ple,  one  of  whom  gave  me  a 
ten-franc  ticket  entitling  me 
to  a  seat  on  a  park  bench 
for  five  francs." 

Madame  Junot  laughed. 
"And  yet  they  claim    that    bunco  is  a 
purely  American  institution,"  she  said. 

"Darner  cried  Napoleon,  rising  from  the 
throne,  and  walking  excitedly  up  and  down 
the  palace  floor,  "I  never  realized  until 
this  moment  that  I  had  been  swindled ! 
Bourrienne,  send  Fouche  to  me.  I  remem- 


BRIENNE  25 

ber  the  man  distinctly,  and  if  he  lives  he 
has  yet  to  die." 

Calming  down,  he  walked  to  Madame 
Junot's  side,  and,  taking  her  by  the  hand, 
continued : 

"And  then  the  theatres!  What  revela 
tions  of  delight  they  were !  I  used  to  go 
to  the  Theatre  Frangais  whenever  I  could 
sneak  away  and  had  the  money  to  seat  me 
with  the  gods  in  the  galleries.  Bernhardt 
was  then  playing  juvenile  parts,  and  Coque- 
lin  had  not  been  heard  of.  Ah  !  my  dear 
Madame  Junot,"  he  added,  giving  her  ear  a 
delicate  pinch,  "those  were  the  days  when 
life  seemed  worth  the  living — when  one  of 
a  taciturn  nature  and  prone  to  irritability 
could  find  real  pleasure  in  existence.  Oh, 
to  be  unknown  again !" 

And  then,  Madame  Junot's  husband  hav 
ing  entered  the  room,  the  Emperor  once  more 
relapsed  into  a  moody  silence. 

But  to  return  to  Brienne.     Napoleon  soon 


26 


MR.  BONAPARTE   OF   CORSICA 


found  that  there  is  a  gulf  measurable  by  no 
calculable  distance  between  existence  as  the 
dominating  force  of  a  family  and  life  as  a 
new  boy  at  a  boarding-school.  He  found 
his  position  reversed,  and  he  began  for  the 
first  time  in  his  life  to  appreciate  the  vir 
tues  of  his  brother  Joseph.  He  who  had 
been  the  victorious  general  crossing  the 
Alps  now  found  himself  the  Alp,  with  a 
dozen  victorious  generals  crossing  him ;  he 
who  had  been  the  gunner  was  now  the  tar 
get,  and  his  present  inability  to  express  his 
feelings  in  language  which  his  tormentors 
could  understand,  for  he  had  not  yet  mas 
tered  the  French  tongue,  kept  him  in  a  state 
of  being  which  may  well  be  termed  volcanic. 
"  I  simply  raged  within  in  those  days," 
Napoleon  once  said  to  Las  Casas.  "  I  could 
have  swallowed  my  food  raw  and  it  would 
have  been  cooked  on  its  way  down,  I  boiled 
so.  They  took  me  for  a  snow-clad  Alj 
when,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  I  was  a  small  V< 


BRIENNE 


suvius,  with  a  temperature  that  would  have 
made  Tabasco  sauce  seem  like  iced  water 
by  contrast." 

His  treatment  at  the  hands  of  his  fellow- 
students  did  much  to  increase  his  irritabili 
ty,  but  he  kept  himself  well  in  hand,  biding 
the  time  when  he  could  repay  their  insults 
with  interest.  They  jeered  him  because  he 
was  short — short  of  stature  and  short  of 
funds ;  they  twitted  him  on  being  an  alien, 
calling  him  an  Italian,  and  asking  him  why 
he  did  not  seek  out  a  position  in 
the  street-cleaning  bureau  instead  of 
endeavoring 
to  associate 
with  gentle 
men.  To 
this  the  boy  V 
made  a  spir 
ited  reply. 

"I  am  fit 
ting    myself 


28  MR.  BONAPARTE   OF   CORSICA 

for  that,"  he  said.  "  I'll  sweep  your  Paris 
ian  streets  some  day,  and  some  of  you  par 
ticles  will  go  with  the  rest  of  the  dust  be 
fore  my  broom." 

He  little  guessed  how  prophetic  were  these 
words. 

Again,  they  tormented  Napoleon  on  being 
the  son  of  a  lawyer,  and  asked  him  who  his 
tailor  was,  and  whether  or  not  his  garments 
were  the  lost  suits  of  his  father's  clients, 
the  result  of  which  was  that,  though  born  of 
an  aristocratic  family,  the  boy  became  a  pro 
nounced  Republican,  and  swore  eternal  en 
mity  to  the  high-born.  Another  result  of 
this  attitude  towards  him  was  that  he  re 
tired  from  the  companionship  of  all  save  his 
books,  and  he  became  intimate  with  Homer 
and  Ossian  and  Plutarch — familiar  with 
the  rise  and  fall  of  emperors  and  empires. 
Challenged  to  fight  a  duel  with  one  of  his 
classmates  for  a  supposititious  insult,  he 
accepted,  and,  having  the  choice  in  weap- 


BRIENNE 


29 


ons,  chose  an  examination  in  mathematics, 
the  one  first  failing  in  a  demonstration  to 
blow  his  brains  out.  "That  is  the  safer 
for  you,"  he  said  to  his  adversary.  "  You 
are  sure  to  lose ;  but  the  after-effects  will 
not  be  fatal,  because  you  have  no  brains 
to  blow  out,  so  you  can  blow  out  a  candle 
instead." 

Whatever  came  of  the  duel  we  are  not 
S   informed ;  but  it  is  to  be  presumed  that  it 
g     did  not  result  fatally  for  young  Bonaparte, 
I      for  he  lived  many  years  after  the  incident, 
|      as  most  of  our  readers  are  probably  aware. 
^     Had  he  not  done  so,  this  biography  would 
have  had  to  stop  here,  and  countless  readers 
of  our  own  day  would  have  been  deprived 
of  much  entertaining  fiction  that  is  even  now 
being  scattered   broadcast  over  the  world 
with  Napoleon  as   its  hero.     His  love  of 
books  combined  with  his  fondness  for  mil 
itary  life  was  never  more   beautifully  ex 
pressed  than  when  he  wrote  to  his  mother : 


30  MR.  BONAPARTE   OF   CORSICA 

"  With  my  sword  at  my  side  and  my  Homer 
in  my  pocket,  I  hope  to  carve  my  way 
through  the  world." 

The  beauty  and  simplicity  of  this  state 
ment  is  not  at  all  affected  by  Joseph's  flip 
pant  suggestion  that  by  this  Napoleon 
probably  meant  that  he  would  read  his 
enemies  to  sleep  with  his  Homer,  and  then 
use  his  sword  to  cut  their  heads  off.  Jo 
seph,  as  we  have  already  seen,  had  been 
completely  subjugated  by  his  younger  broth 
er,  and  it  is  not  to  be  wondered  at,  perhaps, 
that,  with  his  younger  brother  at  a  safe  dis 
tance,  he  should  manifest  some  jealousy,  and 
affect  to  treat  his  sentiments  with  an  un 
warranted  levity. 

(T  For  Napoleon's  self-imposed  solitude  ev 

il         erything   at  Brienne  arranged  itself   propi- 
1         tiously.     Each  of  the  students  was  provided 
ft        with  a  small  patch  of  ground  which  he  could 
do  with  as  he  pleased,  and  Napoleon's  use 
of  his  allotted  share  was  characteristic.     He 


BRIENNE  31 

converted    it  into   a  fortified   garden,   sur 
rounded  by  trees  and  palisades. 

"  Now  I  can  mope  in  peace,"  he  said 
— and  he  did. 

It  has  been  supposed  by  histo 
rians  that  it  was  here  that  Napo 
leon  did  all  of  his  thinking,  map 
ping  out  his  future  career,  and  some 
of   them    have    told    us    what   he 
thought.     He  dreamed   of  future 
glory  always,  one  of  them  states;    but 
whether  upon  the  authority  of  a  pali 
sade  or  a  tiger-lily  is   not  mentioned. 
Others  have  given  us  his  soliloquies  as 
he  passed  to  and  fro  in  this  little  re 
treat  alone,  and  heard  only  by  the  stars 
at  night ;  but  for  ourselves,  we  must  be 
accurate,  and  it  is  due  to  the   reader 
at  this  point  that  we  should  confess— 
having  no  stars  in  our  confidence — our 
entire  ignorance  as  to  what  Napoleon 
Bonaparte  said,  did,  or  thought  when  sit- 


32  MR.  BONAPARTE   OF   CORSICA 

ting  in  solitude  in  his  fortified  bower;  though 
if  our  candid  impression  is  desired  we  have 
no  hesitation  in  saying  that  we  believe  him 
to  have  been  in  Paris  enjoying  the  sights  of 
the  great  city  during  those  periods  of  soli 
tude.  Boys  are  boys  in  all  lands,  and  a 
knowledge  of  that  peculiar  species  of  hu 
man  beings,  the  boarding-school  boy,  is 
Fj-»  /  A  convincing  that,  given  a  prospect  of  five 
or  six  hours  of  uninterrupted  solitude,  no 
youth  of  proper  spirit  would  fail  to  avail 
himself  of  the  opportunities  thus  offered 
to  see  life,  particularly  with  a  city  like  Paris 
within  easy  "  hooky  "  distance. 

It  must  also  be  remembered  that  the 
French  had  at  this  time  abolished  the  here 
after,  along  with  the  idea  of  a  Deity  and  all 
pertaining  thereto,  so  that  there  was  noth 
ing  beyond  a  purely  temporal  discipline  and 
a  lack  of  funds  to  interfere  with  Bonaparte's 
enjoyment  of  all  the  pleasures  which  Paris 
could  give.  Of  temporal  discipline  he  need 


BRIENNE  33 

have  had  no  fear,  since  it  was  perforce  re 
laxed  while  he  was  master  of  his  solitude;  as 
for  the  lack  of  funds,  history  has  shown  that 
this  never  interfered  with  the  fulfilment  of 
Napoleon's  hopes,  and  hence  the  belief  that 
the  beautiful  pictures,  drawn  by  historians 
and  painted  by  masters  of  the  brush,  of  Na 
poleon  in  solitude  should  be  revised  to  in 
clude  a  few  accessories,  drawn  from  such 
portions  of  Parisian  life  as  will  readily  sug 
gest  themselves. 

In  his  studies,  however,  Napoleon  ranked 
high.  His  mathematical  abilities  were  so 
marked  that  it  was  stated  that  he  could 
square  the  circle  with  his  eyes  closed  and 
both  hands  tied  behind  his  back. 

"  The  only  circle  I  could  not  square  at 
that  time,"  said  he,  "  was  the  family  circle, 
being  insufficiently  provided  with  income 
to  do  so.  I  might  have  succeeded  better 
had  not  Joseph's  appetite  grown  too  fast 
for  the  strength  of  my  pocket ;  that  was 


34  MR.  BONAPARTE  OF   CORSICA 

the  only  respect,  however,  in  which  I  ever 
had  any  difficulty  in  keeping  up  with  my 
dear  elder  brother."  It  was  here,  too,  that 
he  learned  the  inestimably  important  mili 
tary  fact  that  the  shortest  distance  between 
two  points  is  in  a  straight  line ;  and  that 
he  had  fully  mastered  that  fact  was  often 
painfully  evident  to  such  of  his  school 
mates  as  seemed  to  force  him  to  measure 
with  his  right  arm  the  distance  between  his 
shoulder  and  the  ends  of  their  noses.  Nor 
was  he  utterly  without  wit.  Asked  by  a 
cribbing  comrade  in  examination  what  a 
corollary  was,  Napoleon  scornfully  whis 
pered  back : 


BRIENNE  35 

"  A  mathematical  camel  with  two  humps." 

In  German  only  was  he  deficient,  much  to 
the  irritation  of  his  instructor. 

"Will  you  ever  learn  anything?"  asked 
M.  Bouer,  the  German  teacher. 

"  Certainly,"  said  Napoleon  ;  "  but  no 
more  German.  I  know  the  only  word  I 
need  in  that  language." 

"  And  what,  pray,  is  that  ?" 

"  Surrender ;  that's  all  I'll  ever  wish  to  say 
to  the  Germans.  But  lest  I  get  it  wrong, 
pray  tell  me  the  imperative  form  of  surren 
der  in  your  native  tongue." 

M.  Bouer's  reply  is  not  known  to  history, 
but  it  was  probably  not  one  which  the  Mas 
ter  of  Etiquette  at  Brienne  could  have  en 
tirely  commended. 

So  he  lived  at  Brienne,  thoroughly  mas 
tering  the  science  of  war ;  acquiring  a  mil 
itary  spirit ;  making  no  friends,  but  com 
manding  ultimately  the  fearsome  respect  of 
his  school-mates.  One  or  two  private  inter- 


36  MR.  BONAPARTE  OF   CORSICA 

views  with  little  aristocrats  who  jeered  at 
him  for  his  ancestry  convinced  them  that 
while  he  might  not  have  had  illustrious  an 
cestors,  it  was  not  unlikely  that  he  would 
in  time  develop  illustrious  descendants,  and 
the  jeerings  and  sneerings  soon  ceased.  The 
climax  of  Bonaparte's  career  at  Brienne  was 
in  1784,  when  he  directed  a  snowball  fight 
between  two  evenly  divided  branches  of  the 
school  with  such  effect  that  one  boy  had 
his  skull  cracked  and  the  rest  were  laid  up 
for  weeks  from  their  wounds. 

"  It  was  a  wonderful  fight,"  remarked  Na 
poleon,  during  his  campaign  in  Egypt.  "  I 
took  good  care  that  an  occasional  missent 
ball  should  bowl  off  the  hat  of  M.  Bouer, 
and  whenever  any  particularly  aristocratic 
aristocrat's  head  showed  itself  above  the 
ramparts,  an  avalanche  fell  upon  his  facade 
with  a  dull,  sickening  thud.  I  have  never 
seen  an  American  college  football  game, 
but  from  all  I  can  learn  from  accounts  in 


the  Paris  editions  of  the  American  news 
papers,  the  effects  physical  in  our  fight  and 
that  game  are  about  the  same." 

In  1784,  shortly  after  this  episode,  Napo 
leon  left  Brienne,  having  learned  all  that 
those  in  authority  there  could  teach  him, 
and  in  1785  he  applied  for  and  received  ad 
mission  to  the  regular  army,  much  to  the 
relief  of  Joseph. 


30  MR.  BONAPARTE   OF  CORSICA 

"  If  he  had  flunked  and  come  back  to 
Corsica  to  live."  said  Joseph,  "  I  think  I 
should  have  emigrated.  I  love  him  dearly, 
but  I'm  fonder  of  myself,  and  Corsica,  large 
as  it  is,  is  too  small  to  contain  Napoleon 
Bonaparte  and  his  brother  Joseph  simulta 
neously,  particularly  as  Joseph  is  distinctly 
weary  of  being  used  as  an  understudy  for  a 
gory  battle-field." 


*S    PARIS — VALENCE — LYONS — CORSICA 
1785-1793 

HE  feeling  among  the  larger  boys 
at  Brienne  at  Napoleon's  depart 
ure  was  much  the  same  as  that 
experienced  by  Joseph  when  his 
soon  -  to  -  be  -  famous  brother  de 
parted  from  Corsica.  The  small 
er  boys  regretted  his  departure, 
since  it  had  been  one  of  their  greatest  pleas 
ures  to  watch  Napoleon  disciplining  the  up 
per  classmen ,  but  Bonaparte  was  as  glad 
to  go  as  the  elders  were  to  have  him. 


40  MR.  BONAPARTE   OF  CORSICA 

"  Brienne  is  good  enough  in  its  way," 
said  he ;  "  but  what's  the  use  of  fighting 
children  ?  It's  merely  a  waste  of  time  crack 
ing  a  youngster's  skull  with  a  snowball 
when  you  can  go  out  into  the  real  world  and 
let  daylight  into  a  man's  whole  system  with 
a  few  ounces  of  grape-shot." 

He  had  watched  developments  at  Paris, 
too,  with  the  keenest  interest,  and  was  suffi 
ciently  far-seeing  to  know  that  the  troubles 
of  the  King  and  Queen  and  their  aristo 
cratic  friends  boded  well  for  a  man  fond  of 
a  military  life  who  had  sense  enough  to  be 
on  the  right  side.  That  it  took  an  abnormal 
degree  of  intelligence  to  know  which  was 
the  right  side  in  those  troublous  days  he 
also  realized,  and  hence  he  cultivated  that 
taciturnity  and  proneness  to  irritability  which 
we  have  already  mentioned. 

"If  it  had  not  been  for  my  taciturnity,  Tal 
leyrand,"  he  observed,  when  in  the  height  of 
his  power,  "I  should  have  got  it  in  the  neck." 


•GOT  WHAT  IN  THE  NECK?'   ASKED  TALLEYRAND' 


42  MR.  BONAPARTE  OF   CORSICA 

"  Got  what  in  the  neck  ?"  asked  Talley 
rand. 

"  The  guillotine,"  rejoined  the  Emperor. 
"  It  was  the  freedom  of  speech  which  people 
of  those  sanguinary  days  allowed  themselves 
that  landed  many  a  fine  head  in  the  basket. 
As  for  me,  I  simply  held  my  tongue  with 
both  hands,  and  when  I  wearied  of  that  I 
called  some  one  in  to  hold  it  for  me.  If  I 
had  filled  the  newspapers  with  '  Inter 
views  with  Napoleon  Bonaparte,'  and  arti 
cles  on  'Where  is  France  at?'  with  mono 
graphs  in  the  leading  reviews  every  month 
on  *  Why  I  am  what  I  am,'  and  all  such 
stuff  as  that,  I'd  have  condensed  my  career 
into  one  or  two  years,  and  ended  by  having 
my  head  divorced  from  my  shoulders  in  a 
most  commonplace  fashion.  Taciturnity  is 
a  big  thing  when  you  know  how  to  work  it, 
and  so  is  proneness  to  irritability.  The 
latter  keeps  you  from  making  friends,  and  I 
didn't  want  any  friends  just  then.  They  were 


luxuries  which  I  couldn't  afford.  You  have 
to  lend  money  to  friends ;  you  have  to  give 
them  dinners  and  cigars,  and  send  bon 
bons  to  their  sisters.  A  friend  in  those 
days  would  have  meant  bankruptcy  of  the 
worst  sort.  Furthermore,  friends  embar 
rass  you  when  you  get  into  public  office,  and 
try  to  make  you  conspicuous  when  you'd  in 
finitely  prefer  to  saw  wood  and  say  noth 
ing.  I  took  my  loneliness  straight,  and 


44  MR.  BONAPARTE   OF   CORSICA 

that  is  one  of  the  reasons  why  I  am  now 
the  Emperor  of  France,  and  your  master." 

Before  entering  the  army  a  year  at  a  Pari 
sian  military  school  kept  Bonaparte  busy. 
There,  as  at  Brienne,  he  made  his  influence 
felt.  He  found  his  fellow -pupils  at  Paris 
living  in  a  state  of  luxury  that  was  not  in 
accord  with  his  ideas  as  to  what  a  soldier 
should  have.  Whether  or  not  his  new  school 
mates,  after  the  time-honored  custom,  tossed 
him  in  a  blanket  on  the  first  night  of  his  arri 
val,  history  does  not  say,  but  Bonaparte  had 
hardly  been  at  the  school  a  week  when  he 
complained  to  the  authorities  that  there  was 
too  much  luxury  in  their  system  for  him. 

"  Cadets  do  not  need  feather-beds  and  ei 
der-down  quilts,"  he  said  ;  "  and  as  for  the 
sumptuous  viands  we  have  served  at  meal 
time,  they  are  utterly  inappropriate.  I'd  rath 
er  have  a  plate  of  Boston  baked  beans  or 
steaming  buckwheat  cakes  to  put  my  mind 
into  that  state  which  should  characterize  the 


PARIS— VALENCE— LYONS— CORSICA       45 

thinking  apparatus  of  a  soldier  than  a  dozen 
of  the  bouchees  financier es  and  lobster  New- 
burgs  and  other  made-dishes  which  you  have 
on  your  menu.     Made -dishes  and  delicate         j& 
beverages  make  one  mellow  and  genial  of        v 
disposition.     What  we  need  is  the  kind  of       t  if 
food  that  will  destroy  our  amiability  and  put 
us  in  a  frame  of  mind  calculated  to  make  us         l£ 
willing  to  kill  our  best  friends — nay,  our  own         *  «ju| 
brothers  and  sisters — if  occasion  arises,  with         jj 
a  smiling  face.    Look  at  me.    I  could  kill  my  f& 

brother  Joseph,  dear  as  he  is  to  me,  and  never        + 
shed  a  tear,  and  it's  buckwheat-cakes  and  HJ 

waffles  that  have  done  it !"  •  « 

Likewise  he  abhorred  dancing.  (^ 

"  Away  with  dancing  men  !"  he  cried,  im 
patiently,  at  one  time  when  in  the  height  of 
his  power,  to  his  Minister  of  War.  "  Suppose 
when  I  was  crossing  the  Alps  my  soldiers 
had  been  of  your  dancing  sort.  How  far 
would  I  have  got  if  every  time  the  band 
played  a  two-step  my  grenadiers  had  dropped 


46 


MR.  BONAPARTE   OF   CORSICA 


their  guns  to  pirouette  over  those  snow-white 
wastes  ?  Let  the  diplomats  do  the  dancing. 
For  soldiers  give  me  men  to  whom  the  polka 
is  a  closed  book  and  the  waltz  an  abomina 
tion." 

Holding  these  views,  he  naturally  failed  to 
win  the  sympathy  of  his  fellows  at  the  Paris 
school  who,  young 
nobles  for  the  most 
part,  could  not  un 
derstand  his  point 
of  view.  So,  having 
nothing  else  to  do, 
he  applied  himself 
solely  to  his  studies 
and  to  reflection, 
and  it  was  the  hap 
piest  moment  of  his 
life  up  to  that  time 
when,  having  passed 
his  examina 
tions  for  en- 


PARIS— VALENCE— LYONS— CORSICA       47 

trance  to  the  regular  army,  he  received  his 
commission  as  a  second  lieutenant. 

"  Now  we're  off!"  he  said  to  himself,  as  he 
surveyed  himself  in  the  mirror,  after  donning 
his  uniform. 

"  It  does  not  set  very  well  in  the  back," 
remarked  one  of  the  maids  of  the  pension  in 
which  he  lived,  glancing  in  at  the  door. 

"It  does  not  matter,"  returned  Bonaparte, 
loftily.  "  As  long  as  it  sets  well  in  front  I'm 
satisfied  ;  for  you  should  know,  madame,  that 
a  true  soldier  never  shows  his  back,  and  that 
is  the  kind  of  a  military  person  I  am.  A 
false  front  would  do  for  me.  I  am  no  tin 
soldier,  which  in  after-years  it  will  interest 
you  to  remember.  When  you  are  writing 
your  memoirs  this  will  make  an  interesting 
anecdote." 

From  this  it  is  to  be  inferred  that  at  this 
time  he  had  no  thought  of  Moscow.  Imme 
diately  after  his  appointment  Bonaparte  re 
paired  to  Valence,  where  his  regiment  was 


48  MR.  BONAPARTE   OF   CORSICA 

stationed  and  where  he  formed  a  strong  at 
tachment  for  the  young  daughter  of  Madame 
du  Colombier,  with  whom,  history  records, 
he  ate  cherries  before  breakfast.  This  was 
his  sole  dissipation  at  that  time,  but  his  fe 
licity  was  soon  to  be  interrupted.  His  regi 
ment  was  ordered  to  Lyons,  and  Bonaparte 
and  his  love  were  parted. 

"  Duty  calls  me,  my  dear,"  he  said,  on 
leaving  her.  "  I  would  stay  if  I  could,  but 
I  can't,  and,  on  the  whole,  it  is  just  as  well. 
If  I  stayed  I  should  marry  you,  and  that 
would  never  do.  You  cannot  support  me, 
nor  I  you.  We  cannot  live  on  cherries, 
and  as  yet  my  allowance  is  an  ingrow 
ing  one  —  which  is  to  say  that  it  goes 
from  me  to  my  parent,  and  not  from  my 
parent  to  me.  Therefore,  my  only  love, 
farewell.  Marry  some  one  else.  There 
are  plenty  of  men  who  are  fond  of  cher 
ries  before  breakfast,  and  there  is  no  rea- 


PARIS — VALENCE — LYONS — CORSICA   49 

son  why  one  so  attractive  as  you  should  not 
find  a  lover/' 

The  unhappy  girl  was  silent  for  a  moment. 
Then,  with  an  ill -suppressed  sob,  she  bade 
him  go. 

"You  are  right,  Napoleon,"  she  said. 
"  Go.  Go  where  duty  calls  you,  and  if  you 
get  tired  of  Lyons — 

"  Yes  ?"  he  interrupted,  eagerly. 

"  Try  leopards  !"  she  cried,  rushing  from 
his  embrace  into  the  house. 

Bonaparte  never  forgave  this  exhibition 
of  flippancy,  though  many  years  after,  when 
he  learned  that  his  former  love,  who  had 
married,  as  he  had  bade  her  do,  and  suffered, 
was  face  to  face  with  starvation,  it  is  said, 
on  the  authority  of  one  of  his  ex-valet's  me 
moirs,  that  he  sent  her  a  box  of  candied 
cherries  from  one  of  the  most  expensive 
confectionery-shops  of  Paris. 

After  a  brief  sojourn  at  Lyons,  Napoleon 
was  summoned  with  his  regiment  to  quell 


50  MR.  BONAPARTE  OF  CORSICA 

certain  popular  tumults  at  Auxonne.  There 
Vv  he  distinguished  himself  as  a  handler  of 
mobs,  and  learned  a  few  things  that  were  of 
inestimable  advantage  to  him  later.  Speak 
ing  of  it  in  after-years,  he  observed :  "  It  is  my 
opinion,  my  dear  Emperor  Joseph,  that  grape- 
shot  is  the  only  proper  medicine  for  a  mob. 
Some  people  prefer  to  turn  the  hose  on  them, 
but  none  of  that  for  me.  They  fear  water 
as  they  do  death,  but  they  get  over  water. 
Death  is  more  permanent.  I've  seen  many 
a  rioter,  made  respectable  by  a  good  soaking, 
return  to  the  fray  after  he  had  dried  out,  but 
in  all  my  experience  I  have  never  known  a 
man  who  was  once  punctured  by  a  discharge 
of  grape-shot  who  took  any  further  interest 
in  rioting." 

About  this  time  he  began  to  regulate  his 
taciturnity.  On  occasions  he  had  opinions 
which  he  expressed  most  forcibly.  In  1790, 
having  gone  to  an  evening  reception  at 


PARIS— VALENCE — LYONS— CORSICA       $1 

Madame  Neckar's,  he  electrified  his  hostess 
and  her  guests  by  making  a  speech  of  some 
five  hundred  words  in  length,  too  long  to  be 
quoted  here  in  full,  but  so  full  of  import 
and  delivered  with  such  an  air  of  authori 
ty  that  La  Fayette,  who  was  present,  paled 
visibly,  and  Mirabeau,  drawing  Madame  de 
Stae'l  to  one  side,  whispered,  trembling  with 
emotion,  "  Who  is  that  young  person  ?" 

Whether  this  newly  acquired  tendency  to 
break  in  upon  the  reserve  which  had  hith 
erto  been  the  salient  feature  of  his  speech 
had  anything  to  do  with  it  or  not  we  are 
not  aware,  but  shortly  afterwards  Napoleon 
deemed  it  wise  to  leave  his  regiment  for  a 
while,  and  to  return  to  his  Corsican  home 
on  furlough.  Of  course  an  affecting  scene 
was  enacted  by  himself  and  his  family  when 
they  were  at  last  reunited.  Letitia,  his  fond 
mother,  wept  tears  of  joy,  and  Joseph,  shak 
ing  him  by  the  hand,  rushed,  overcome 
with  emotion,  from  the  house.  Napoleon 


52  MR.  BONAPARTE   OF   CORSICA 

shortly  after  found  him  weeping  in  the  gar 
den. 

"  Why  so  sad,  Joseph  ?"  he  inquired.  "  Are 
you  sorry  I  have  returned  ?"  » 

"  No,  dear  Napoleon,"  said  Joseph,  turn 
ing  away  his  head  to  hide  his  tears,  "  it  is 
not  that.  I  was  only  weeping  because — be 
cause,  in  the  nature  of  things,  you  will  have 
to  go  away  again,  and  —  the  —  the  idea  of 
parting  from  you  has  for  the  moment  upset 
my  equilibrium." 

"  Then  we  must  proceed  to  restore  it," 
said  Napoleon,  and,  taking  Joseph  by  the 
right  arm,  he  twisted  it  until  Joseph  said 
that  he  felt  quite  recovered. 

Napoleon's  stay  at  Corsica  was  quite  un 
eventful.  Fearing  lest  by  giving  way  to 
love  of  family,  and  sitting  and  talking  with 
them  in  the  luxuriously  appointed  parlor  be 
low -stairs,  he  should  imbibe  too  strong  a 
love  for  comfort  and  ease,  and  thus  weaken 
his  soldierly  instincts,  as  well  as  break  in 


PARIS — VALENCE — LYONS — CORSICA       53 

upon  that  taciturnity  which,  as  we  have  seen, 
was  the  keynote  of  his  character,  he  had  set 
apart  for  himself  a  small  room  on  the  attic 
floor,  where  he  spent  most  of  his  time  un 
disturbed,  and  at  the  same  time  made  Jo 
seph  somewhat  easier  in  his  mind. 

"  When  he's  up-stairs  I  am  comparatively 
safe,"  said  Joseph.  "  If  he  stayed  below 
with  us  I  fear  I  should  have  a  return  of  my 
nervous  prostration." 

Meantime,  Napoleon  was  promoted  to  a 
first  -  lieutenancy,  and  shortly  after,  during 
the  Reign  of  Terror  in  Paris,  having  once 
more  for  the  moment  yielded  to  an  impulse 
to  speak  out  in  meeting,  he  denounced  an 
archy  in  unmeasured  terms,  and  was  arrest 
ed  and  taken  to  Paris. 

"  It  was  a  fortunate  arrest  for  me,"  he 
said.  "  There  I  was  in  Corsica  with  barely 
enough  money  to  pay  my  way  back  to  the  cap 
ital.  Arrested,  the  State  had  to  pay  my  fare, 
and  I  got  back  to  active  political  scenes  on 


FREE  PASS    R. 

'        ^ 


54 


MR.  BONAPARTE   OF   CORSICA 


fflttll 


Bin:.. ;,. 


a  free  pass.  As  for  the  trial,  it  was 
a  farce,  and  I  was  triumphantly  ac 
quitted.  The  jury  was  out  only  fif 
teen  minutes.  I  had  so  little  to  say 
for  myself  that  the  judges  began  to 
doubt  if  I  had  any  ideas  on  any 
subject  —  or,  as  one  of  them  said, 
having  no  head  to  mention,  it  would 
be  useless  to  try  and  cut  it  off. 
Hence  my  acquittal  and  my  feeling 
that  taciturnity  is  the  mother  of 
safety." 

Then  came  the  terrible  attack  of 
the  mob  upon  the  Tuileries  on  the 
2oth  of  June,  1792.  Napoleon  was 
walking  in  the  street  with  Bourri- 
enne  when  the  attack  began. 

"There's  nothing  like  a  lamp 
post  for  an  occasion  like  this,  it 
broadens  one's  views  so,"  he  said, 
rapidly  climbing  up  a  convenient 
post,  from  which  he  could  see  all 


PARIS— VALENCE— LYONS— CORSICA       55 

that  went  on.  "  I  didn't  know  that  this  was 
the  royal  family's  reception-day.  Do  you 
want  to  know  what  I  think  ?" 

"Mumm  is  the  word,"  whispered  Bourri- 
enne.  "This  is  no  time  to  have  opin 
ions." 

"  Mumm  may  be  the  word,  but  water  is 
the  beverage.  Mumm  is  too  dry.  What 
this  crowd  needs  is  a  good  wetting  down," 
retorted  Bonaparte.  "If  I  were  Louis  XVI. 
I'd  turn  the  hose  on  these  tramps,  and 
keep  them  at  bay  until  I  could  get  my  little 
brass  cannon  loaded.  When  I  had  that 
loaded,  I'd  let  them  have  a  few  balls  hot 
from  the  bat.  This  is  what  comes  of  being 
a  born  king.  Louis  doesn't  know  how  to 
talk  to  the  people.  He's  all  right  for  a 
state-dinner,  but  when  it  comes  to  a  mass- 
meeting  he  is  not  in  it." 

And  then  as  the  King,  to  gratify  the 
mob,  put  the  red  cap  of  Jacobinism  upon 
his  head,  the  man  who  was  destined  before 


56  MR.  BONAPARTE   OF  CORSICA 

many  years  to  occupy  the  throne  of  France 
let  fall  an  ejaculation  of  wrath. 

"  The  wretches  !"  he  cried.  "  How  little 
they  know  !  They've  only  given  him  an 
other  hat  to  talk  through  !  They'll  have 
to  do  their  work  all  over  again,  unless 
Louis  takes  my  advice  and  travels  abroad 
for  his  health." 

These  words  were  prophetic,  for  barely 
two  months  later  the  second  and  most  ter 
rible  and  portentous  attack  upon  the  palace 
took  place— an  attack  which  Napoleon  wit 
nessed,  as  he  had  witnessed  the  first,  from 
a  convenient  lamp -post,  and  which  filled 
him  with  disgust  and  shame  ;  and  it  was 
upon  that  night  of  riot  and  bloodshed  that 
he  gave  utterance  to  one  of  his  most  famous 
sayings. 

"  Bourrienne,"  said  he,  as  with  his  faithful 
companions  he  laboriously  climbed  the  five 
flights  of  stairs  leading  to  his  humble  apart 
ment,  "  I  hate  the  aristocrats,  as  you  know ; 


and  to-day  has  made  me  hate  the  popu 
lace  as  well.  What  is  there  left  to  like  ?" 

"  Alas !  lieutenant,  I  cannot  say,"  said 
Bourrienne,  shaking  his  head  sadly. 

"What,"  continued  Napoleon,  "is  the 
good  of  anything  ?" 

"  I  give  it  up,"  returned  Bourrienne,  with  a 


50  MR.  BONAPARTE   OF   CORSICA 

sigh.    "  I  never  was  good  at  riddles.    What 
is  the  good  of  anything  ?" 

"  Nothing  !"  said  Napoleon,  laconically, 
as  he  took  off  his  uniform  and  went  to  bed. 


SARDINIA— TOULON  — NICE— PARIS— BARRAS 
— JOSEPHINE 

I793-I796 

REATNESS  now  began  to 
dawn  for  Napoleon.  Prac 
tically  penniless,  in  a  great 
and  heartless  city,  even  the 
lower  classes  began  to  perceive  that  here 
was  one  before  whom  there  lay  a  brilliant 
future.  Restaurateurs,  laundresses,  confec 
tioners —  all  trusted  him.  An  instance  of 
the  regard  people  were  beginning  to  have 
for  him  is  shown  in  the  pathetic  interview 


6o 


MR.   BONAPARTE   OF    CORSICA 


between  Napoleon  and  Madame  Sans  Gene, 
his  laundress. 

"  Here  is  your  wash,  lieutenant,"  said  she, 
after  climbing  five  flights  of  stairs,  basket  in 
hand,  to  the  miserable  lodging  of  the  future 
Emperor. 

Napoleon  looked  up  from  his  books  and 
counted  the  clothes. 

"There  is  one  sock  missing,"  said  he, 
sternly. 

"No,"  returned  Sans  Gene.  "Half  of 
each  sock  was  washed  away,  and  I  sewed 
the  remaining  halves  into  one.  One  good 
sock  is  better  than  two  bad  ones.  If  you 
ever  lose  a  leg  in  battle  you  may  find  the 
odd  one  handy." 

"  How  can  I  ever  repay  you  ?"  cried  Na 
poleon,  touched  by  her  friendly  act. 

"I'm  sure  I  don't  know,"  returned  Ma 
dame  Sans  Gene,  demurely,  "unless  you  will 
escort  me  to  the  Charity  Ball  —  I'll  buy  the 
tickets." 


PARIS — BARRAS — JOSEPHINE  6l 

"  And,  pray,  what  good  will  that  do  ?" 
asked  Bonaparte. 

"It  will  make  Lefebvre  jealous,"  said 
Madame  Sans  Gene,  "  and  maybe  that  will 
bring  him  to  the  point.  I  want  to  marry 
him,  but,  encourage  him  as  I  will,  he  does 
not  propose,  and  as  in  revising  the  calen 
dar  the  government  has  abolished  leap-year, 
I  really  don't  know  what  to  do." 

"  I  cannot  go  to  the  ball,"  said  Napoleon, 
sadly.  "  I  don't  dance,  and,  besides,  I  have 
loaned  my  dress  suit  to  Bourrienne.  But  I 
will  flirt  with  you  on  the  street  if  you  wish, 
and  perhaps  that  will  suffice." 

It  is  hardly  necessary  to  tell  the  reader 
that  the  ruse  was  successful,  and  that  Le 
febvre,  thus  brought  to  the  point,  married 
Madame  Sans  Gene,  and  subsequently, 
through  his  own  advancement,  made  her 
the  Duchess  of  Dantzig.  The  anecdote 
suffices  to  show  how  wretchedly  poor 
and  yet  how  full  of  interest  and  useful  to 


62 


MR.  BONAPARTE   OF   CORSICA 


those    about    him    Napoleon    was    at    the 
time. 

In  February,  1793,  a  change  for  the  better 
in  his  fortunes  occurred.  Bonaparte,  in  co 
operation  with  Admiral  Turget,  was  ordered 
to  make  a  descent  upon  Sardinia.  What 
immediately  followed  can  best  be  told  in 
Bonaparte's  own  words.  "  My  descent  was 
all  right,"  he  said  afterwards,  "  and  I  had 
the  Sardines  all  ready  to  put  in  boxes,  when 
Turget  had  a  fit  of  sea-sickness,  lost  his 
bearings,  and  left  me  in 
the  lurch.  There  was 
nothing  left  for  me  but 
to  go  back  to  Corsica 
and  take  it  out  of  Joseph, 
which  I  did,  much  to  Jo 
seph's  unhappiness.  It 
was  well  for  the  family 
/  that  I  did  so,  for 
hardly  had  I  arrived 
at  Ajaccio  when  I 


PARIS— BARRAS— JOSEPHINE  63 

found  my  old  friend  Paoli  wrapping  Corsica 
up  in  a  brown -paper  bundle  to  send  to 
the  King  of  England  with  his  compliments. 
This  I  resisted,  with  the  result  that  our 
whole  family  was  banished,  and  those  fools 
of  Corsicans  broke  into  our  house  and 
smashed  all  of  our  furniture.  They  little 
knew  that  that  furniture,  if  in  existence  to 
day,  would  bring  millions  of  francs  as  curios 
if  sold  at  auction.  It  was  thus  that  the  fam 
ily  came  to  move  to  France  and  that  I  be 
came  in  fact  what  I  had  been  by  birth — a 
Frenchman.  If  I  had  remained  a  Corsican, 
Paoli's  treachery  would  have  made  me  an 
Englishman,  to  which  I  should  never  have 
become  reconciled,  although  had  I  been  an 
Englishman  I  should  have  taken  more  real 
pleasure  out  of  the  battle  of  Waterloo  than 
I  got. 

"  After  this  I  was  ordered  to  Toulon.  The 
French  forces  here  were  commanded  by 
General  Cartaux,  who  had  learned  the  sci- 


64  MR.  BONAPARTE  OF   CORSICA 

ence  of  war  painting  portraits  in  Paris.  He 
ought  to  have  been  called  General  Cartoon. 
He  besieged  Toulon  in  a  most  impressionistic 
fashion.  He'd  bombard  and  bombard  and 
bombard,  and  then  leave  the  public  to  guess 
at  the  result.  It's  all  well  enough  to  be  an 
impressionist  in  painting,  but  when  it  comes 
to  war  the  public  want  more  decided  effects. 
When  I  got  there,  as  a  brigadier-general, 
I  saw  that  Cartaux  was  wasting  his  time 
and  ammunition.  His  idea  seemed  to  be 
that  by  firing  cannon  all  day  he  could  so 
deafen  the  enemy  that  at  night  the  French 
army  could  sneak  into  Toulon  unheard  and 
capture  the  city,  which  was,  to  say  the  least,  un 
scientific.  I  saw  at  once  that  Cartaux  must 
go,  and  I  soon  managed  to  make  life  so  un 
bearable  for  him  that  he  resigned,  and  a  man 
named  Doppet,  a  physician,  was  placed  in 
command.  Doppet  was  worse  than  Car 
taux.  Whenever  anybody  got  hurt  he'd 
stop  the  war  and  prescribe  for  the  injured 


PARIS — BARRAS — JOSEPHINE 


man.  If  he  could  have  prescribed  for 
the  enemy  they'd  have  died  in  greater 
numbers  I  have  no  doubt,  but,  like  the 
idiot  he  was,  he  practised  on  his  own 
forces.  Besides,  he  was  more  interest 
ed  in  surgery  than  in  capturing  Toulon. 
He  always  gave  the  ambulance  corps 
the  right  of  line,  and  I  believe  to  this 
day  that  his  plan  of  routing  the  English 
involved  a  sudden  rush  upon  them,  tak 
ing  them  by  surprise,  and  the  subse 
quent  amputation  of  their  legs.  The 
worst  feature  of  the  situation,  as  I  found 
it,  was  that  these  two  men,  falling  back 
upon  their  rights  as  my  superior  officers, 
refused  to  take  orders  from  me.  I  called 
their  attention  to  the  fact  that  rank  had 
been  abolished,  and  that  in  France  one 
man  was  now  as  good  as  another ;  but 
they  were  stubborn,  so  I  wrote  to  Paris 
and  had  them  removed.  Then  came 
Dugommier,  who  backed  me  up  in  my 


to 


IdEblfc 


*\ 


66 


MR.  BONAPARTE  OF   CORSICA 


plans,  and  Toulon  as  a  consequence  imme 
diately  fell  with  a  dull,  sickening  thud." 

It  was  during  this  siege  that  Bonaparte 
first  encountered  Junot.  Having  occasion 
to  write  a  note  while  under  fire  from  the  en 
emy's  batteries,  Napoleon  called  for  a  ste 
nographer.  Junot  came  to  him. 

"  Do  you  know  shorthand  ?"  asked  the 
general,  as  a  bomb  exploded  at  his  feet. 

"  Slightly,"  said  Junot,  calmly. 

"Take  this  message,"  returned  the  gen 
eral,  coolly,  dictating. 

Junot  took  down  Bonaparte's  words,  but 
just  as  he  finished  another  bomb  exploded 


PARIS — BARRAS — JOSEPHINE  67 

near  by,  scattering  dust  and  earth  and  sand 
all  over  the  paper. 

"  Confounded  boors,  interrupting  a  gen 
tleman  at  his  correspondence !"  said  Bona 
parte,  with  an  angry  glance  at  the  hostile 
gunners.  "  I'll  have  to  dictate  that  message 
all  over  again." 

"Yes,  general,"  returned  Junot,  quickly, 
"but  you  needn't  mind  that.  There  will 
be  no  extra  charge.  It's  really  my  fault.  I 
should  have  brought  an  umbrella." 

"  You  are  a  noble  fellow,"  said  Napoleon, 
grasping  his  hand  and  squeezing  it  warmly. 
"  In  the  heyday  of  my  prosperity,  if  my 
prosperity  ever  goes  a -haying,  I  shall  re 
member  you.  Your  name?" 

"Junot,  General,"  was  the  reply. 

Bonaparte  frowned.  "  Ha  !  ha  !"  he 
laughed,  acridly.  "You  jest,  eh?  Well, 
Junot,  when  I  am  Jupiter  I'll  reward  you." 

Later  on,  discovering  his  error,  Bonaparte 
made  a  memorandum  concerning  Junot, 


68  MR.  BONAPARTE   OF   CORSICA 

which  was  the  first  link  in  the  chain  which 
ultimately  bound  the  stenographer  to  fame 
as  a  marshal  of  France. 

There  have  been  various  other  versions 
of  this  anecdote,  but  this  is  the  only  correct 
one,  and  is  now  published  for  the  first  time 

on  the  authority  of  M.  le  Comte  de  B , 

whose  grandfather  was  the  bass -drummer 
upon  whose  drum  Junot  was  writing  the 
now  famous  letter,  and  who  was  afterwards 
ennobled  by  Napoleon  for  his  services  in 
Egypt,  where,  one  dark,  drizzly  night,  he 
frightened  away  from  Bonaparte's  tent  a 
fierce  band  of  hungry  lions  by  pounding 
vigorously  upon  his  instrument. 

About  this  time  Napoleon,  who  had  been 
spelling  his  name  in  various  ways,  and  par 
ticularly  with  a  "  u,"  as  Buonaparte,  decided 
to  settle  finally  upon  one  form  of  designa 
tion. 

.  "  People  are  beginning  to  bother  the  life 
out  of  me  with  requests  for  my  autograph," 


70  MR.  BONAPARTE   OF  CORSICA 

he  said  to  Bourrienne,  "  and  it  is  just  as  well 
that  I  should  settle  on  one.  If  I  don't, 
they'll  want  me  to  write  out  a  complete  set 
of  them,  and  I  haven't  time  to  do  that." 

"Buonaparte  is  a  good-looking  name," 
suggested  Bourrienne.  "  It  is  better  than 
Bona  Parte,  as  you  sometimes  call  yourself. 
If  you  settle  on  Bona  Parte,  you'd  have 
really  three  names  ;  and  as  you  don't  write 
society  verse  for  the  comic  papers,  what's 
the  use  ?  Newspaper  reporters  will  refer  to 
you  as  Napoleon  B.  Parte  or  N.  Bona  Parte, 
and  the  public  hates  a  man  who  parts  his 
name  in  the  middle.  Parte  is  a  good  name 
in  its  way,  but  it's  too  short  and  abrupt. 
Few  men  with  short,  sharp,  decisive  names 
like  that  ever  make  their  mark.  Let  it  be 
Buonaparte,  which  is  sort  of  high-sounding 
— it  makes  a  mouthful,  as  it  were." 

"  If  I  drop  the  '  u '  the  autograph  will  be 
shorter,  and  I'll  gain  time  writing  it,"  said  Na 
poleon.  "  It  shall  be  Bonaparte  without  *  u."1 


PARIS — BARRAS — JOSEPHINE 


"  Humph !"  ejaculated  Bourrienne.  "  Bo 
naparte  without  me  !  I  like  that.  Might  as 
well  talk  of  Dr.  Johnson  without  Boswell." 

Bonaparte  now  went  to  Nice  as  chief  of 
batallion  in  the  army  of  Italy ;  but  having 
incurred  the  displeasure  of  a  suspicious 
home  government,  he  was  shortly  supersed 
ed,  and  lived  in  retirement  with  his  family 
at  Marseilles  for  a  brief  time.  Here  he 
fell  in  love  again,  and  would  have  married 
Mademoiselle  Clery,  whom  he  afterwards 
made  Queen  of  Sweden,  had  he  not  been 
so  wretchedly  poor. 

"  This,  my  dear,"  he  said,  sadly,  to  Made 
moiselle  Clery,  "  is  the  beastly  part  of  be 
ing  the  original  ancestor  of  a  family  in 
stead  of  a  descendant.  I've  got  to  make 
the  fortune  which  will  enrich  posterity,  while 
I'd  infinitely  prefer  having  a  rich  uncle 
somewhere  who'd  have  the  kindness  to  die 
and  leave  me  a  million.  There's  Joseph — 
lucky  man.  He's  gone  and  got  married. 


•N. 


72  MR.  BONAPARTE   OF   CORSICA 

He  can  afford  it.  He  has  me  to  fall  back 
on,  but  I— I  haven't  anybody  to  fall  back 
on,  and  so,  for  the  second  time  in  my  life, 
must  give  up  the  only  girl  I  ever  loved." 

With  these  words  Napoleon  left  Made 
moiselle  Clery,  and  returned  to  Paris  in 
search  of  employment. 

"  If  there's  nothing  else  to  do,  I  can  dis 
guise  myself  as  a  Chinaman  and  get  em- 


PARIS— BARRAS— JOSEPHINE  73 

ployment  in  Madame  Sans  Gene's  laundry," 
he  said.  "  There's  no  disgrace  in  washing, 
and  in  that  way  I  may  be  able  to  provide 
myself  with  decent  linen,  anyhow.  Then  I 
shall  belong  to  the  laundered  aristocracy,  as 
the  English  have  it." 

But  greater  things  than  this  awaited  Na 
poleon  at  Paris.  Falling  in  with  Barras,  a 
member  of  the  Convention  which  ruled 
France  at  this  time,  he  learned  that  the 
feeling  for  the  restoration  of  the  monarchy 
was  daily  growing  stronger,  and  that  the 
royalists  of  Paris  were  a  great  menace  to 
the  Convention. 

"  They'll  mob  us  the  first  thing  we  know," 
said  Barras.  "The  members  look  to  me 
to  save  them  in  c*ase  of  attack,  but  I  must 
confess  I'd  like  to  sublet  the  contract." 

"Give  it  to  me,  then.  I'm  temporarily 
out  of  a  job,"  said  Napoleon,  "  and  the  life 
I'm  leading  is  killing  me.  If  it  weren't  for 
Talma's  kindness  in  letting  me  lead  his 


74 


MR.  BONAPARTE  OF  CORSICA 


armies  on  the  stage  at  the  Odeon,  with  a 
turn  at  scene-shifting  when  they  are  not 
playing  war  dramas,  I  don't  know  what 
I'd  do  for  my  meals ;  and  even  when  I 
do  get  a  sandwich  ahead  occasionally  I 
have  to  send  it  to  Marseilles  to  my 
mother.     Give  me  your  contract,  and  if 
I  don't  save  your  Convention  you  needn't 
pay  me  a  red  franc.     I  hate  aristocrats,  and 
I  hate  mobs ;  and  this  being  an  aristocratic 
mob,  I'll  go  into  the  work  with  enthusiasm." 
"  You  !"  cried  Barras.     "  A  man  of  your 
size,  or  lack  of  it,  save  the  Convention  from 
a  mob  of  fifty  thousand  ?     Nonsense  !" 

"  Did  you  ever  hear  that  little  slang  phrase 
so  much  in  vogue  in  America,"  queried 
Napoleon,  coldly  fixing  fiis  eye  on  Barras 
— "a  phrase  which  in  French  runs,  *  Petit, 
mats  O  Mot"1 — or,  as  they  have  it,  'Little, 
but  O  My '  ?  Well,  that  is  me.*  Besides,  if 

*  Napoleon's  English  at  this  time  was  not  of  the  best  qual 
ity. 


PARIS— BARRAS — JOSEPHINE  75 

I  am  small,  there  is  less  chance  of  my  being 
killed,  which  will  make  me  more  Courageous 
in  the  face  of  fire  than  one  of  your  bigger 
men  would  be." 

"  I  will  put  my  mind  on  it,"  said  Barras, 
somewhat  won  over  by  Napoleon's  self-con 
fidence. 

"Thanks,"  said  Napoleon;  "and  now 
come  into  the  cafe  and  have  dinner  with 
me." 

"  Save  your  money,  Bonaparte,"  said  Bar 
ras.  "  You  can't  afford  to  pay  for  your  own 
dinner,  much  less  mine." 

"  That's  precisely  why  I  want  you  to  dine 
with  me,"  returned  Napoleon.  "If  I  go 
alone,  they  won't  serve  me  because  they 
know  I  can't  pay.  If  I  go  in  with  you, 
they'll  give  me  everything  they've  got  on 
the  supposition  that  you  will  pay  the  bill. 
Come  !  En  avant  /" 

"  Vous  etes  un  b&uchonnier,  vraiment  /"  said 
Barras,  with  a  laugh. 


76  MR.   BONAPARTE   OF   CORSICA 

"  A  what  ?"  asked  Napoleon,  not  familiar 
with  the  idiom. 

"  A  corker  !"  explained  Barras. 

"Very  good,"  said  Napoleon,  his  face 
lighting  up.  "  If  you'll  order  a  bottle  of 
Burgundy  with  the  bird  I  will  show  you  that 
I  am  likewise  something  of  an  uncorker." 

This  readiness  on  Napoleon's  part  in  the 
face  of  difficulty  completely  captured  Barras, 
and  as  a  result  the  young  adventurer  had 
his  first  real  chance  to  make  an  impression 
on  Paris,  where,  on  the  J3th  Vende'miaire 
(or  October  4,  1795),  he  literally  obliterated 
the  forces  of  the  Sectionists,  whose  success 
in  their  attack  upon  the  Convention  would 
have  meant  the  restoration  of  the  Bourbons 
to  the  throne  of  France.  Placed  in  com 
mand  of  the  defenders  of  the  Convention, 
Napoleon  with  his  cannon  swept  the  mob 
from  the  four  broad  avenues  leading  to  the 
palace  in  which  the  legislators  sat. 

"  Don't  fire  over  their  heads,"  said  he  to 


PARIS— BARRAS— JOSEPHINE  77 

his  gunners,  as  the  mob  approached.  "  Bring 
our  arguments  right  down  to  their  compre 
hension,  and  remember  that  the  compre 
hension  of  a  royalist  is  largely  affected  by 
his  digestion.  Therefore,  gunners,  let  them 
have  it  there.  If  these  assassins  would 
escape  appendicitis  they  would  better  avoid 
the  grape  I  send  them." 

The  result  is  too  well  known  to  need  de 
tailed  description  here.  Suffice  it  to  say 
that  Bonaparte's  attentions  to  the  digestive 
apparatus  of  the  rioters  were  so  effective 
that,  in  token  of  their  appreciation  of  his 
services,  the  Convention  soon  afterwards 
placed  him  in  command  of  the  Army  of  the 
Interior. 

Holding  now  the  chief  military  position 
in  Paris,  Bonaparte  was  much  courted  by 
every  one,  but  he  continued  his  simple  man 
ner  of  living  as  of  yore,  overlooking  his 
laundry  and  other  bills  as  unostentatiously 
as  when  he  had  been  a  poor  and  insignificant 


78  MR.  BONAPARTE  OF   CORSICA 

subaltern,  and  daily  waxing  more  taciturn 
and  prone  to  irritability. 

"You  are  becoming  gloomy,  General," 
said  Barras  one  morning,  as  the  two  men 
breakfasted.  "  It  is  time  for  you  to  marry 
and  become  a  family  man." 

"Peste!"  said  Napoleon,  "man  of  family! 
It  takes  too  long — it  is  tedious.  Families 
are  delightful  when  the  children  are  grown 
up  ;  but  I  could  not  endure  them  in  a  state 
of  infancy." 

"Ah  !"  smiled  Barras,  significantly.  " But 
suppose  I  told  you  of  a  place  where  you 
could  find  a  family  ready  made  ?" 

Napoleon  at  once  became  interested. 

"I  should  marry  it,"  he  said,  "for  truly  I 
do  need  some  one  to  look  after  my  cloth 
ing,  particularly  now  that,  as  a  man  of  high 
rank,  my  uniforms  hold  so  many  buttons." 

Thus  it  happened  that  Barras  took  the 
young  hero  to  a  reception  at  the  house  of 
Madame  Tallien,  where  he  introduced  him 


to  the  lovely  widow,  Josephine  de  Beauhar- 
nais,  and  her  two  beautiful  children. 

"There  you  are,  Bonaparte," he  whispered, 
as  they  entered  the  room;  "  there  is  the  fam 
ily  complete — one  wife,  one  son,  one  daugh 
ter.  What  more  could  you  want  ?  It  will 
be  yours  if  you  ask  for  it,  for  Madame  de 
Beauharnais  is  very  much  in  love  with  you." 


80  MR.  BONAPARTE   OF   CORSICA 

"  Ha  !"  said  Napoleon.  "  How  do  you 
know  that  ?" 

"  She  told  me  so,"  returned  Barras. 

"  Very  well,"  said  Napoleon,  making  up 
his  mind  on  the  instant.  "  I  will  see  if  I 
can  involve  her  in  a  military  engagement." 

Which,  as  the  world  knows,  he  did ;  and 
on  the  Qth  of  March,  1796,  Napoleon  and 
Josephine  were  united,  and  the  happy  groom, 
writing  to  his  mother,  announcing  his  mar 
riage  to  "the  only  woman  he  ever  loved," 
said :  "  She  is  ten  years  older  than  I,  but 
1  can  soon  overcome  that.  The  opportu 
nities  for  a  fast  life  in  Paris  are  unequalled, 
and  I  have  an  idea  that  I  can  catch  up  with 
her  in  six  months  if  the  Convention  will  in 
crease  my  salary." 


ITALY— MILAN— VIENNA— VENICE 
1796-1797 

FTER  a  honeymoon  of  ten  days 
Napoleon  returned  to  work.  As 
suming  command  of  the  army  of 
Italy,  he  said :  "  I  am  at  last 
^  in  business  for  myself.  Keep 
j  your  eyes  on  me,  Bourrienne, 
and  you'll  wear  blue  goggles. 
You'll  have  to,  you'll  be  so  dazzled.  We 
will  set  off  at  once  for  Italy.  The  army  is 
in  wretched  shape.  It  lacks  shoes,  clothes, 


82  MR.  BONAPARTE  OF  CORSICA 

food.  It  lacks  everything.  I  don't  think 
it  even  has  sense.  If  it  had  it  would  strike 
for  lower  wages.7' 

"  Lower  wages  ?"  queried  Bourrienne. 
"  You  mean  higher,  don't  you  ?" 

"  Not  I,"  said  Bonaparte.  "  They  couldn't 
collect  higher  wages,  but  if  their  pay  was 
reduced  they  might  get  it  once  in  a  while. 
We  can  change  all  this,  however,  by  invad 
ing  Italy.  Italy  has  all  things  to  burn,  from 
statuary  to  Leghorn  hats.  In  three  months 
we  shall  be  at  Milan.  There  we  can  at 
least  provide  ourselves  with  fine  collections 
of  oil-paintings.  Meantime  let  the  army 
feed  on  hope  and  wrap  themselves  in  medi 
tation.  It's  poor  stuff,  but  there's  plenty  of 
it,  and  it's  cheap.  On  holidays  give  the 
poor  fellows  extra  rations,  and  if  hope  does 
not  sustain  them,  cheer  them  up  with  prom 
ises  of  drink.  Tell  them  when  we  get  to 
Italy  they  can  drink  in  the  scenery  in  un 
stinted  measure,  and  meanwhile  keep  the 


'"THERE'S  NOTHING  LIKE  MUSIC 


84  MR.  BONAPARTE   OF   CORSICA 

band  playing  merrily.  There's  nothing  like 
music  to  drive  away  hunger.  I  understand 
that  the  lamented  king's  appetite  was  seri 
ously  affected  by  the  Marseillaise." 

To  his  soldiers  he  spoke  with  equal  vigor. 

"  Soldiers,"  he  said,  "  sartorially  speak 
ing,  you  are  a  poor  lot ;  but  France  does  not 
want  a  tailor-made  army  at  this  juncture. 
We  are  not  about  to  go  on  dress  parade, 
but  into  grim-visaged  war,  and  the  patches 
on  your  trousers,  if  you  present  a  bold  front 
to  the  enemy,  need  never  be  seen.  You  are 
also  hungry,  but  so  am  I.  I  have  had  no 
breakfast  for  four  hours.  The  Republic 
owes  you  much ;  but  money  is  scarce,  and 
you  must  whistle  for  your  pay.  The  emi 
gres  have  gone  abroad  with  all  the  circula 
ting  medium  they  could  lay  their  hands  on, 
and  the  Government  has  much  difficulty  in 
maintaining  the  gold  reserve.  For  my  part, 
I  prefer  fighting  for  glory  to  whistling  for 
money.  Fighting  is  the  better  profession. 


ITALY— MILAN— VIENNA— VENICE 


You  are  men.  Leave  whistling  to  boys. 
Follow  me  into  Italy,  where  there  are  fertile 
plains — plains  from  whose  pregnant  soil 
the  olive  springs  at  the  rate  of  a  million 
bottles  a  year,  plains  through  whose  lovely 
lengths  there  flow  rivers  of  Chianti.  Fol 
low  me  to  Italy,  where  there  are  opulent 
towns  with  clothing-stores  on  every  block, 
and  churches  galore,  with  their  poor-boxes 
bursting  with  gold.  Soldiers,  can  you  resist 
the  alluring  prospect  ?" 

"  Vive    VEmpereur  /"    cried 
the  army,  with  one  voice. 

Napoleon  frowned. 

"  Soldiers  !"  he  cried,  "  Re 
member  this :  you  are  making 
history ;  therefore,  pray  be  ac 
curate.     I  am  not  yet 
Emperor,  and  you  are 
guilty  of  an    anachro 
nism  of  a  most  embar 
rassing  sort.       Some 


86  MR.  BONAPARTE   OF   CORSICA 

men  make  history  in  a  warm  room  with  pen 
and  ink,  aided  by  guide-books  and  collec 
tions  of  anecdotes.  Leave  anachronisms 
and  inaccuracies  to  them.  For  ourselves, 
we  must  carve  it  out  with  our  swords  and 
cannon ;  we  must  rubricate  our  pages  with 
our  gore,  and  punctuate  our  periods  with 
our  bayonets.  Let  it  not  be  said  by  future 
ages  that  we  held  our  responsibilities  light 
ly  and  were  careless  of  facts,  and  to  that 
end  don't  refer  to  me  as  Emperor  until  you 
are  more  familiar  with  dates.  When  we 
have  finished  with  Italy  I'll  take  you  to  the 
land  where  dates  grow.  Meanwhile,  restez 
tranquille,  as  they  say  in  French,  and  breathe 
all  the  air  you  want.  France  can  afford  you 
that  in  unstinted  measure." 

"  Vive  Bonaparte!"  cried  the  army,  taking 
the  rebuke  in  good  part. 

"  Now  you're  shouting,"  said  Napoleon, 
with  a  smile.  "  You're  a  good  army,  and  if 
you  stick  by  me  you'll  wear  diamonds." 


ITALY — MILAN — VIENNA — VENICE         87 

"  We  have  forgotten  one  thing,"  said  Bar- 
ras  a  few  days  later,  on  the  eve  of  Napo 
leon's  departure.  "We  haven't  any  casus 
belli." 

"  What's  that  ?"  said  Napoleon,  who  had 
been  so  busy  with  his  preparations  that 
he  had  forgotten  most  of  his  Greek  and 
Latin. 

"  Cause  for  war,"  said  Barras.  "  Where 
were  you  educated  ?  If  you  are  going  to 
fight  the  Italians  you've  got  to  have  some 
principle  to  fight  for." 

"  That's  precisely  what  we  are 
going  to  fight  for,"  said  Napoleon. 
"  We're  a  bankrupt  people.  We're 
going  to  get  some  principal  to  set 
us  up  in  business.  We  may  be 
able  to  float  some  bonds  in  Ven 
ice." 

"  True,"  returned  Barras ;  "  but 
that,  after  all,  is  mere  highway 
robbery. 


88  MR.  BONAPARTE  OF   CORSICA 

"Well,  all  I've  got  to  say,"  retorted  Na 
poleon,  with  a  sneer — "  all  I've  got  to  say  is 
that  if  your  Directory  can't  find  something 
in  the  attitude  of  Italy  towards  the  Repub 
lic  to  take  offence  at,  the  sooner  it  goes  out 
of  business  the  better.  I'll  leave  that  ques 
tion  entirely  to  you  fellows  at  Paris.  I 
can't  do  everything.  You  look  after  the 
casus,  and  I'll  take  care  of  the  belli" 

This  plan  was  adopted.  The  Directory, 
after  discussing  various  causes  for  action, 
finally  decided  that  an  attack  on  Italy  was 
necessary  for  three  reasons.  First,  because 
the  alliance  between  the  kings  of  Sardinia 
and  Austria  was  a  menace  to  the  Republic, 
and  must  therefore  be  broken.  Second, 
the  Austrians  were  too  near  the  Rhine  for 
France's  comfort,  and  must  be  diverted  be 
fore  they  had  drunk  all  the  wine  of  the  coun 
try,  of  which  the  French  were  very  fond  ; 
and,  third,  His  Holiness  the  Pope  had  taken 
little  interest  in  the  now  infidel  France,  and 


ITALY— MILAN— VIENNA— VENICE         89 

must  therefore  be  humiliated.  These  were 
the  reasons  for  the  war  settled  upon  by  the 
government,  and  as  they  were  as  satisfac 
tory  to  Napoleon  as  any  others,  he  gave  the 
order  which  set  the  army  of  Italy  in  motion. 

"  How  shall  we  go,  General  ?"  asked  Au- 
gereau,  one  of  his  subordinates.  "  Over  the 
Alps  ?" 

"  Not  this  time,"  returned  Napoleon.  "  It 
is  too  cold.  The  army  has  no  ear-tabs. 
We'll  skirt  the  Alps,  and  maybe  the  skirt 
will  make  them  warmer." 

This  the  army  proceeded  at  once  to  do, 
and  within  a  month  the  first  object  of  the 
war  was  accomplished. 

The  Sardinian  king  was  crushed,  and  the 
army  found  itself  in  possession  of  food, 
drink,  and  clothes  to  a  surfeit.  Bonaparte's 
pride  at  his  success  was  great  but  not  over 
weening. 

"  Soldiers !"  he  cried, "  you  have  done  well. 
So  have  I.  Hannibal  crossed  the  Alps. 


90  MR.  BONAPARTE   OF   CORSICA 

We  didn't ;  but  we  got  here  just  the  same. 
You  have  provided  yourselves  with  food  and 
clothes,  and  declared  a  dividend  for  the 
Treasury  of  France  which  will  enable  the 
Directory  to  buy  itself  a  new  hat  through 
which  to  address  the  people.  You  have 
reason  to  be  proud  of  yourselves.  Pat 
yourselves  on  your  backs  with  my  compli 
ments,  but  remember  one  thing.  Our  tick 
ets  are  to  Milan,  and  no  stop-overs  are  al 
lowed.  Therefore,  do  not  as  yet  relax  your 
efforts.  Milan  is  an  imperial  city.  The 
guide-books  tell  us  that  its  cathedral  is  a 
beauty,  the  place  is  full  of  pictures,  and  the 
opera-house  finished  in  1779  is  the  largest 
in  the  world.  It  can  be  done  in  two  days, 
and  the  hotels  are  good.  Can  you,  there 
fore,  sleep  here  ?" 

"  No,  no  !"  cried  the  army. 

"Then,"  cried  Napoleon,  tightening  his 
reins  and  lifting  his  horse  on  to  its  hind-legs 
and  holding  his  sword  aloft,  "A  Milan!" 


"  How  like  a  statue  he  looks,"  said 
Lannes,  admiringly. 

"Yes,"  replied  Augereau,  "you'd  think 
he  was  solid  brass." 

The  Austrian  troops  were  now  concen 
trated  behind  the  Po,  but  Napoleon  soon 
outgeneralled  their  leaders,  drove  them  back 
to  the  Adda,  and  himself  pushed  on  to  the 
Bridge  of  Lodi,  which  connected  the  east 
and  west  branches  of  that  river. 

"When  I  set  out  for  the  P.  O.  P.  E.," 


92  MR.  BONAPARTE   OF   CORSICA 

said  Napoleon,  "  I'm  not  going  to  stop  half 
way  and  turn  back  at  the  P.  O.  We've  got 
the  Austrians  over  the  Adda,  and  that's  just 
where  we  want  them.  I  had  a  dream  once 
about  the  Bridge  of  Lodi,  and  it's  coming 
true  now  or  never.  We'll  take  a  few  of  our 
long  divisions,  cross  the  Adda,  and  subtract 
a  few  fractions  of  the  remainder  now  left 
the  Austrians.  This  will  destroy  their  en 
thusiasm,  and  Milan  will  be  ours." 

The  words  were  prophetic,  for  on  the  loth 
of  May  the  French  did  precisely  what  their 
commander  had  said  they  would  do,  and  on 
the  fourteenth  day  of  May  the  victorious 
French  entered  Milan,  the  wealthy  capital 
of  Lombardy. 

"  Curious  fact,"  said  Napoleon.  "  In 
times  of  peace  if  a  man  needs  a  tonic  you 
give  him  iron,  and  it  builds  him  up ;  but  in 
war  if  you  give  the  troops  iron  it  bowls  'em 
down.  Look  at  those  Austrians  ;  they've 
got  nervous  prostration  of  the  worst  sort." 


ITALY — MILAN — VIENNA — VENICE 


93 


"They  got  too  much  iron,"  said  Lannes. 
"  Too  much  tonic  is  worse  than  none.  A 
man  can  stand  ten  or  twenty  grains  of  iron, 
but  forty  pounds  is  rather  upsetting." 

"True,"  acquiesced  Napoleon.  "Well, 
it  was  a  great  fight,  and  I  have  only  one  re 
gret.  I  do  wish  you'd  had  a  Kodak  to  take 
a  few  snap-shots  of  me  at  that  Bridge  of 
Lodi.  I'd  like  to  send  some  home  to  the 
family.  It  would  have  reminded  brother  Jo 
seph  of  old  times  to  see  me  dashing  over  that 
bridge,  prodding  its  planks  with  my  heels 
until  it  fairly  creaked  with  pain.  It  would 
have  made  a  good  frontispiece  for  Bourri- 
enne's  book  too.  And  now,  my  dear  Lannes, 
what  shall  we  do  with  ourselves  for  the  next 
five  days  ?  Get  out  your  Baedecker  and  let 
us  see  this  imperial  city  of  the  Lombards." 

"There's  one  matter  we  must  arrange 
first,"  said  Augereau  ;  "  we  haven't  any  sta 
ble  accommodations  to  speak  of." 

"  What's  the  matter  with  the  stalls  at  the 


94  MR.  BONAPARTE   OF   CORSICA 

opera-house  ?"  suggested  Napoleon.  "  As  I 
told  the  troops  the  other  day,  it's  the  biggest 
theatre  in  the  world.  You  ought  to  be  able 
to  stable  the  horses  there  and  lodge  the 
men  in  the  boxes." 

"The  horses  would  look  well  sitting  in 
orchestra  chairs,  wouldn't  they  ?"  said  Au- 
gereau.  "  It's  not  feasible.  As  for  the 
boxes,  they're  mostly  held  by  subscribers." 

"Then  stable  them  in  the  picture-galler 
ies,"  said  the  general.  "  It  will  be  good 
discipline." 

"  The  people  will  call  that  sacrilege,"  re 
turned  Augereau. 

"  Not  if  we  remove  the  pictures,"  said 
Bonaparte.  "We'll  send  the  pictures  to 
Paris." 

Accordingly  this  was  done,  and  the  gal 
leries  of  France  were  thereby  much  en 
riched.  We  mention  these  details  at  length, 
because  Napoleon  has  been  severely  criti 
cised  for  thus  impoverishing  Italy,  as  well 


ITALY— MILAN— VIENNA— VENICE         95 

as  for  his  so-called  contempt  of  art — a  crit 
icism  which,  in  the  face  of  this  accurate  ver 
sion,  must  fall  to  the  ground.  The  pictures 
were  sent  by  him  to  Paris  merely  to  preserve 
them,  and,  as  he  himself  said,  a  propos  of 
the  famous  Da  Vinci,  beneath  which  horses 
and  men  alike  were  quartered:  "I'd  have 
sent  that  too,  but  to  do  it  I'd  have  had 
to  send  the  whole  chapel  or  scrape  the  pict 
ure  off  the  wall.  These  Italians  should 
rather  thank  than  condemn  me  for  leaving 
it  where  it  was.  Mine  was  not  an  army  of 
destruction,  but  a  Salvation  Army  of  the 
highest  type." 

"You  made  mighty  few  converts  for  a 
Salvation  Army,"  said  Talleyrand,  to  whom 
this  remark  was  addressed. 

"  That's  where  you  are  wrong,"  said  Na 
poleon.  "I  made  angels  of  innumerable 
Austrians,  and  converted  quite  a  deal  of 
Italian  into  French  territory." 

It  was  hardly  to  be  doubted  that  Napo- 


96  MR.  BONAPARTE  OF   CORSICA 

leon's  successes  would  arouse  jealousies  in 
Paris,  and  the  Directory,  fearing  the  hold 
the  victorious  general  was  acquiring  upon 
the  people,  took  steps  to  limit  his  powers. 
Bonaparte  instantly  resigned  his  command 
and  threatened  to  return  to  Paris,  which  so 
frightened  the  government  that  they  refused 
to  accept  his  resignation. 

From  this  time  on  for  nearly  a  year  Na 
poleon's  career  was  a  succession  of  victo 
ries.  He  invaded  the  Papal  States,  and 
acquired  millions  of  francs  and  hundreds 
of  pictures.  He  chastised  all  who  op 
posed  his  sway,  and,  after  pursuing  the 
Austrians  as  far  as  Leoben,  within  sight  of 
Vienna,  he  humbled  the  haughty  Emperor 
Joseph. 

"  I'll  recognize  your  Republic,"  said  the 
Emperor  at  last,  finding  that  there  was  noth 
ing  else  to  be  done. 

"Thanks,"  said  Napoleon  —  "!  thought 
you  would ;  but  I  don't  know  whether  the 


Republic  will  recognize  you.  She  doesn't 
even  know  you  by  sight." 

"  Is  that  all  you  want  ?"  asked  the  Em 
peror,  anxiously. 

"  For  the  present,  yes.  Some  day  I  may 
come  back  for  something  else,"  returned 
Napoleon,  significantly.  "  And,  by-the-way, 
when  you  are  sending  your  card  to  the 
French  people  just  enclose  a  small  remit 
tance  of  a  few  million  francs,  not  necessarily 
for  publication,  but  as  a  guarantee  of  good 
faith.  Don't  send  all  you've  got,  but  just 
enough.  You  may  want  to  marry  off  one 

7 


98  MR.  BONAPARTE  OF   CORSICA 

of  your  daughters  some  day,  and  it  will  be 
well  to  save  something  for  her  dowry." 

It  was  in  little  acts  of  this  nature  that 
Napoleon  showed  his  wonderful  foresight. 
.One  would  almost  incline  to  believe  from 
this  particular  incident  that  Bonaparte  fore 
saw  the  Marie-Louise  episode  in  his  future 
career. 

The  Austrians  humbled,  Napoleon  turned 
his  attention  to  Venice.  Venice  had  been 
behaving  in  a  most  exasperating  fashion, 
and  the  conqueror  felt  that  the  time  had 
come  to  take  the  proud  City  of  the  Sea  in 
hand. 

"  If  the  Venetians  have  any  brains,"  said 
he  to  Bourrienne,  who  joined  him  about  this 
time,  secretly  representing,  it  is  said,  a  news 
paper-syndicate  service,  "they'll  put  on  all 
the  sail  they've  got  and  take  their  old  city 
out  to  sea.  They're  in  for  the  worst  duck 
ing  they  ever  got." 

"  I'm  afraid  you'll  find  them  hard  to  get 


ITALY— MILAN— VIENNA— VENICE         99 

at,"  said  Bourrienne.  "  That  lagoon  is  a  wet 
place." 

"Oh,  as  for  that,"  said  Bonaparte,  "  a  little 
water  will  do  the  army  good.  We've  been 
righting  so  hard  it's  been  months  since 
they've  had  a  good  tubbing,  and  a  swim 
won't  hurt  them.  Send  Lannes  here." 

In  a  few  minutes  Lannes  entered  Bona 
parte's  tent. 

"Lannes,  we're  off  for  Venice.  Provide 
the  army  with  overshoes,  and  have  our  lug 
gage  checked  through,"  said  Bonaparte. 

"  Yes,  General." 

"  Can  Augereau  swim  ?" 

"  I  don't  know,  General." 

"Well,  find  out,  and  if  he  can't  we'll  get 
him  a  balloon." 


100  MR.  BONAPARTE  OF   CORSICA 

Thus,  taking  every  precaution  for  the  com 
fort  of  his  men  and  the  safety  of  his  offi 
cers,  Napoleon  set  out.  Venice,  hearing  of 
his  approach,  was  filled  with  consternation, 
and  endeavored  to  temporize.  The  Doges 
offered  millions  if  Bonaparte  would  turn  his 
attention  to  others,  to  which  Napoleon  made 
this  spirited  reply :  "  Venetians,  tell  the 
Doges,  with  my  compliments,  that  I  am 
coming.  The  wealth  of  the  Indies  couldn't 
change  my  mind.  They  offer  me  stocks  and 
bonds;  well,  I  believe  their  stocks  and 
bonds  to  be  as  badly  watered  as  their 
haughty  city,  and  I'll  have  none  of  them. 
I'll  bring  my  stocks  with  me,  and  your 
Doges  will  sit  in  them.  I'll  bring  my 
bonds,  and  your  nobles  shall  put  them  on 
and  make  them  clank.  You've  been  drown 
ing  Frenchmen  every  chance  you've  had. 
It  will  now  be  my  pleasing  duty  to  make 
you  do  a  little  gurgling  on  your  own  ac 
count.  You'll  find  out  for  the  first  time  in 


ITALY— MILAN— VIENNA— VENICE       IOI 

your  lives  what  it  is  to  be  in  the  swim.  Put 
on  your  bathing-suits  and  prepare  for  the 
avenger.  The  lions  of  St.  Marc  must  lick 
the  dust." 

"We  have  no  dust,  General,"  said  one  of 
the  messengers. 

"  Then  you'd  better  get  some,"  retorted 
Napoleon,  "  for  you  will  have  to  come  down 
with  it  to  the  tune  of  millions." 

True  to  his  promise,  Napoleon  appeared 
at  the  lagoon  on  the  3ist  of  May,  and  the 
hitherto  haughty  Venice  fell  with  a  splash 
that  could  be  heard  for  miles,  first  having 
sent  five  ships  of  war,  3,000,000  francs,  as 
many  more  in  naval  stores,  twenty  of  her 
best,  pictures,  the  bronze  horses  of  the  fa 
mous  church,  five  hundred  manuscripts,  and 
one  apology  to  the  French  Republic  as  the 
terms  of  peace.  The  bronze  horses  were 
subsequently  returned,  but  what  became  of 
the  manuscripts  we  do  not  know.  They 
probably  would  have  been  returned  also — a 


large  portion  of  them,  at  least— if  postage- 
stamps  had  been  enclosed.  This  is  mere 
theory,  of  course ;  but  it  is  rendered  reason 
able  by  the  fact  that  this  is  the  usual  fate  of 


ITALY — MILAN — VIENNA— VENICE        103 

most  manuscripts ;  nor  is  there  any  record 
of  their  having  been  published  in  the  Moni- 
teur,  the  only  periodical  which  the  French 
government  was  printing  at  that  time. 

As  for  Bonaparte,  it  was  as  balm  to  his 
soul  to  humble  the  haughty  Doges,  whose 
attitude  towards  him  had  always  been  char 
acterized  by  a  superciliousness  which  filled 
him  with  resentment. 

"  It  did  me  good,"  he  said,  many  years 
after,  with  a  laugh,  "to  see  those  Doges 
swimming  up  and  down  the  Grand  Canal  in 
their  state  robes,  trying  to  look  dignified, 
while  I  stood  on  the  sidewalk  and  asked 
them  why  they  didn't  come  in  out  of  the 
wet." 


MONTEBELLO— PARIS— EGYPT 
1797-1799 

OSEPHINE  now  deemed  it  well  to 
join  her  lord  at  Milan.  There  had 
been  so  many  only  women  he  had 
ever  loved  that  she  was  not  satisfied 
to  remain  at  Paris  while  he  was  con 
ducting  garden-parties  at  the  Castle 
of  Montebello.  Furthermore,  Bona 
parte  himself  wished  her  to  be  present. 

"This  Montebello  life  is,  after  all,  little 
else  than  a  dress  rehearsal  for  what  is  to 


MONTEBELLO — PARIS — EGYPT  105 

come,"  he  said,  confidentially,  to  Bourrienne, 
"  and  Josephine  can't  afford  to  be  absent. 
It's  a  great  business,  this  being  a  Dictator 
and  having  a  court  of  your  own,  and  I'm 
inclined  to  think  I  shall  follow  it  up  as  my 
regular  profession  after  I've  conquered  a  lit 
tle  more  of  the  earth." 

Surrounded  by  every  luxury,  and  in  receipt 
for  the  first  time  in  his  life  of  a  steady  in 
come,  Bonaparte  carried  things  with  a  high 
hand.  He  made  treaties  with  various  powers 
without  consulting  the  Directory,  for  whom 
every  day  he  felt  a  growing  contempt. 

"What  is  the  use  of  my  consulting  the 
Directory,  anyhow  ?"  he  asked.  "  If  it  were 
an  Elite  Directory  it  might  be  worth  while, 
but  it  isn't.  I  shall,  therefore,  do  as  I  please, 
and  if  they  don't  like  what  I  do  I'll  ratify  it 
myself." 

Ambassadors  waited  upon  him  as  though 
he  were  a  king,  and  when  one  ventured  to 
disagree  with  the  future  Emperor  he  wished 


io6 


MR.  BONAPARTE   OF   CORSICA 


he  hadn't.  Cobent 
zel,  the  envoy  of  the 
Austrian  ruler,  soon 
discovered  this. 

"  I  refuse  to  ac 
cept  your  ultima 
tum,"  said  he  one 
day  to  Napoleon,  af 
ter  a  protracted  con 
ference. 

"You    do,    eh?" 
said  Napoleon,  pick 
ing   up    a    vase    of 
delicate  workman 
ship.     "  Do  you  see  this  jug?" 
"  Yes,"  said  Cobentzel. 
"Well,"  continued  Napoleon,  dropping  it 
to  the  floor,  where  it  was  shattered  into  a 
thousand  pieces,  "  do  you  see  it  now  ?" 
"  I  do,"  said  Cobentzel ;  "  what  then  ?" 
"  It  has  a  mate,"  said  Napoleon,  signifi 
cantly  ;  "  and  if  you  do  not  accept  my  ultima- 


MONTEBELLO— PARIS— EGYPT  107 

turn  I'll  smash  the  other  one  upon  your  plain 
but  honest  countenance." 

Cobentzel  accepted  the  ultimatum. 

Bonaparte's  contempt  for  the  Directory 
was  beginning  to  be  shared  by  a  great  many 
of  the  French,  and,  to  save  themselves,  the 
"  Five  Sires  of  the  Luxembourg,"  as  the  Di 
rectory  were  called,  resolved  on  a  brilliant 
stroke,  which  involved  no  less  a  venture 
than  the  invasion  of  England.  Bonaparte, 
hearing  of  this,  and  anxious  to  see  London, 
of  which  he  had  heard  much,  left  Italy  and 
returned  to  Paris. 

"  If  there's  a  free  tour  of  England  to  be 
had,  Josephine,"  said  he,  "  I  am  the  man  to 
have  it.  Besides,  this  climate  of  Italy  is  get 
ting  pretty  hot  for  an  honest  man.  I've  re 
fused  twenty  million  francs  in  bribes  in  two 
weeks.  If  they'd  offered  another  sou  I'm 
afraid  I'd  have  taken  it.  I  will  therefore  go 
to  Paris,  secure  the  command  of  the  army 
of  England,  and  pay  a  few  of  my  respects  to 


108  MR.  BONAPARTE   OF   CORSICA 

George  Third,  Esq.  I  hear  a  great  many 
English  drop  their  h's ;  I'll  see  if  I  can't  make 
'em  drop  their  /.  s.  ^/.'s  as  well." 

Arrived   in    Paris,  Bonaparte    was    much 
courted  by  everybody. 

"I   have  arrived,"  he    said,  with  a  grim 
smile.     "  Even  my  creditors  are  glad  to  see 
me,  and  I'll  show  them  that  I  have  not  for 
gotten  them  by  running  up  a  few  more  bills." 
This  he  did,  going  to  the  same  tradesmen 
that  he  had  patronized  in  his 
days  of  poverty.     To  his  hat 
ter,  whom   he   owed   for   his 
last  five  hats,  he  said : 

"They  call  me  haughty 
here ;  they  say  I  am  cold. 
Well,  I  am  cold.  I've  shiv 
ered  on  the  Alps  several 
times  since  I  was  here  last, 
and  it  has  chilled  my  nature. 
It  has  given  me  the  grip,  so 
to  speak,  and  when  I  lose 


MONTEBELLO — PARIS — EGYPT  109 

my  grip  the  weather  will  be  even  colder. 
Give  me  a  hat,  my  friend." 

"  What  size  ?"  asked  the  hatter. 

"The  same,"  said  Bonaparte,  with  a  frown. 
"  Why  do  you  ask  ?" 

"  I  was  told  your  head  had  swelled,"  re 
turned  the  hatter,  meekly. 

"They  shall  pay  for  this,"  murmured  Na 
poleon,  angrily. 

"  I  am  glad,"  said  the  hatter,  with  a  sigh. 
"  I  was  wondering  who'd  pay  for  it." 

"  Oh,  you  were,  eh  ?"  said  Napoleon. 
"  Well,  wonder  no  more.  Get  out  your 
books." 

The  hatter  did  so. 

"  Now  charge  it,"  said  Napoleon. 

"  To  whom  ?"  asked  the  hatter. 

"  Those  eminent  financiers,  Profit  &  Loss,1 
said  Napoleon,  with  a  laugh,  as  he  left  the 
shop.     "  That's  what  I  call  a  most  success 
ful  hat-talk,"  he  added,  as  he  told  Bourrienne 
of  the  incident  later  in  the  day. 


110      MR.  BONAPARTE   OF    CORSICA 

"  How  jealous  they  all  are !"  said 
Bourrienne.  "The  idea  of  your 
having  a  swelled  head  is  ridicu 
lous." 

"  Of  course,"  said  Napoleon ; 
"all  I've  got  is  a  proper  realization 
of  '  Whom  I  Am,'  as  they  say  in 
Boston.  But  wait,  my  boy,  wait. 
When  I  put  a  crown  on  my  head — " 

What  Bonaparte  would  have  said 
will  never  be  known,  for  at  that 
moment  the  general's  servant  an 
nounced  Mme.  Sans  Gene,  his  for 
mer  laundress,  and  that  celebrated 
woman,  unconventional  as  ever, 
stalked  into  the  room.  Napoleon 
looked  at  her  coldly. 

"  You  are —  ?"  he  queried. 

"Your  former  laundress,"  she 
replied. 


MONTEBELLO— PARIS— EGYPT  III 

"  Ah  ;  and  you  want—  ?" 

"  My  pay,"  she  retorted. 

"  I  am  sorry,  madame,"  said  the  General, 
"  but  the  expenses  of  my  Italian  tour  have 
been  very  great,  and  I  am  penniless.  I  will, 
however,  assist  you  to  the  full  extent  of  my 
power.  Here  are  three  collars  and  a  dress- 
shirt.  If  you  will  launder  them  I  will  wear 
them  to  the  state  ball  to-morrow  evening, 
and  will  tell  all  my  rich  and  influential 
friends  who  did  them  up,  and  if  you  wish  I 
will  send  you  a  letter  saying  that  I  patronized 
your  laundry  once  two  years  ago,  and  have 
since  used  no  other." 

These  anecdotes,  unimportant  in  them 
selves,  are  valuable  in  that  they  refute  the 
charges  made  against  General  Bonaparte  at 
this  time — first,  that  he  returned  from  Egypt 
with  a  fortune,  and,  second,  that  he  carried 
himself  with  a  hauteur  which  rendered  him 
unapproachable. 

For  various  reasons  the   projected   inva- 


112  MR.  BONAPARTE   OF   CORSICA 

sion  of  England  was  abandoned,  and  the 
expedition  to  Egypt  was  substituted.  This 
pleased  Napoleon  equally  as  well. 

"  I  wasn't  stuck  on  the  English  invasion, 
anyhow,"  he  said,  in  writing  to  Joseph.  "  In 
the  first  place,  they  wanted  me  to  go  in  Oc 
tober,  when  the  London  season  doesn't  com 
mence  until  spring,  and,  in  the  second  place, 
I  hate  fogs  and  mutton-chops.  Egypt  is 
more  to  my  taste.  England  would  enervate 
me.  Egypt,  with  the  Desert  of  Sahara  in  its 
backyard,  will  give  me  plenty  of  sand,  and  if 
you  knew  what  projects  I  have  in  mind — 
which,  of  course,  you  don't,  for  you  never 
knew  anything,  my  dear  Joseph — you'd  see 
how  much  of  that  I  need." 

The  Directory  were  quite  as  glad  to  have 
Napoleon  go  to  Egypt  as  he  was  to  be  sent. 
Their  jealousy  of  him  was  becoming  more 
painful  to  witness  every  day. 

"If  he  goes  to  England,"  said  Barras, 
"  he'll  conquer  it,  sure  as  fate  ;  and  it  will  be 


MONTEBELLO— PARIS— EG YPT  1 1 3 

near  enough  for  excursion  steamers  to  take 
the  French  people  over  to  see  him  do  it.  If 
that  happens  we  are  lost." 

"  He'll  conquer  Egypt,  though,  and  he'll 
tell  about  it  in  such  a  way  that  he  will 
appear  twice  as  great,"  suggested  Carnot. 
"Seems  to  me  we'd  better  sell  out  at  once 
and  be  done  with  it." 

"  Not  so,"  said  Moulin.  "  Let  him  go  to 
Egypt.  Very  likely  he'll  fall  off  a  pyramid 
there  and  break  his  neck." 

"  Or  get  sunstruck,"  suggested  Barras. 

"  There's  no  question  about  it  in  my  mind," 
said  Gohier.  "Egypt  is  the  place.  If  he  es 
capes  the  pyramids  or  sunstroke,  there  are 
still  the  lions  and  the  simoon,  not  to  mention 
the  rapid  tides  of  the  Red  Sea.  Why,  he 
just  simply  can't  get  back  alive.  I  vote  for 
Egypt." 

Thus  it  happened  that  on  the  igth  day  of 
May,  1798,  with  an  army  of  forty  thousand 
men  and  a  magnificant  staff  of  picked  offi- 


MR.  BONAPARTE  OF  CORSICA 


t 


cers,  Napoleon  em 
barked  for  Egypt. 

"I'm  glad  we're 
off,"  said  he  to  the 
sailor  who  had 
charge  of  his  steam 
er-chair.  "I've  got 
to  hurry  up  and 


these  French  will  forget  me. 
A  man  has  to  make  a  three- 
ringed  circus  of  himself  to 
keep  his  name  before  the  pub 
lic  these  days." 

"What  are  you  fightin'  for  this  time,  sir?" 
asked  the  sailor,  who  had  not  heard  that 
war  had  been  declared  —  "ile  paintin's  or 
pyramids  ?" 

"  I  am  going  to  free  the  people  of  the 
East  from  the  oppressor,"  said  Napoleon, 
loftily. 

"  And  it's  a  noble  work,  your  honor,"  said 


MONTEBELLO — PARIS — EGYPT  11$ 

the  sailor.  "  Who  is  it  that's  oppressirv  these 
people  down  East?" 

"You'll  have  to  consult  the  Directory," 
said  Napoleon,  coldly.  "  Leave  me  ;  I  have 
other  things  to  think  of." 

On  the  loth  of  June  Malta  was  reached, 
and  the  Knights  of  St.  John,  long  disused  to 
labor  of  any  sort,  like  many  other  knights  of 
more  modern  sort,  surrendered  in  most  hos 
pitable  fashion,  inviting  Napoleon  to  come 
ashore  and  accept  the  freedom  of  the  island 
or  anything  else  he  might  happen  to  want. 
His  reply  was  characteristic  - 

"  Tell  the  Knights  of  Malta  to  attend  to 
their  cats.  I'm  after  continents,  not  isl 
ands,"  said  he ;  and  with  this,  leaving  a  de 
tachment  of  troops  to  guard  his  new  acquisi 
tion,  he  proceeded  to  Alexandria,  which  he 
reached  on  the  ist  of  July.  Here,  in  the 
midst  of  a  terrible  storm  and  surf,  Napoleon 
landed  his  forces,  and  immediately  made  a 
proclamation  to  the  people. 


Il6  MR.  BONAPARTE   OF   CORSICA 

"  Fellahs  !"  he  cried,  "  I  have  come.  The 
newspapers  say  to  destroy  your  religion.  As 
usual,  they  prevaricate.  I  have  come  to  free 
you.  All  you  who  have  yokes  to  shed  prepare 
to  shed  them  now.  I  come  with  the  olive- 
branch  in  my  hand.  Greet  me  with  out 
stretched  palms.  Do  not  fight  me.  for  I  am 
come  to  save  you,  and  I  shall  utterly  obliter 
ate  any  man,  be  he  fellah,  Moujik,  or  even 
the  great  Marmalade  himself,  who  prefers 
fighting  to  being  saved.  We  may  not  look 
it,  but  we  are  true  Mussulmen.  If  you  doubt 
it,  feel  our  muscle.  We  have  it  to  burn.  De 
sert  the  Mamelukes  and  be  saved.  The 
Pappylukes  are  here." 

On  reading  this  proclamation  Alexandria 
immediately  fell,  and  Bonaparte,  using  the 
Koran  as  a  guide-book,  proceeded  on  his 
way  up  the  Nile.  The  army  suffered  greatly 
from  the  glare  and  burning  of  the  sun- 
scorched  sand,  and  from  the  myriads  of  pes 
tiferous  insects  that  infested  the  country;  but 


MONTEBELLO — PARIS — EGYPT 


117 


Napoleon  cheered  them  on.  "  Soldiers  !"  he 
cried,  when  they  complained,  "  if  this  were  a 
summer  resort,  and  you  were  paying  five  dol 
lars  a  day  for  a  room  at  a  bad  hotel,  you'd 
think  yourselves  in  luck,  and  you'd  recom 
mend  your  friends  to  come  here  for  a  rest. 
Why  not  imagine  this  to  be  the  case  now  ? 
Brace  up.  We'll  soon  reach  the  pyramids, 
and  it's  a  mighty  poor  pyramid  that  hasn't 
a  shady  side.  On  to  Cairo  !" 

"It's  easy  enough  for  you  to  talk,"  mur 
mured  one.  "  You've  got  a  camel  to  ride  on 
and  we  have  to  walk." 


Il8  MR.  BONAPARTE   OF   CORSICA 

"Well,  Heaven  knows,"  retorted  Napo 
leon,  pointing  to  his  camel,  "  camel  -  riding 
isn't  like  falling  off  a  log.  At  first  I  was  car 
ried  away  with  it,  but  for  the  last  two  days 
it  has  made  me  so  sea-sick  I  can  hardly  see 
that  hump." 

After  this  there  was  no  more  murmuring, 
but  Bonaparte  did  not  for  an  instant  relax 
his  good-humor. 

"The  water  is  vile,"  said  Dessaix,  one 
morning. 

"  Why  not  drink  milk,  then  ?"  asked  the 
commander. 

"Milk!  I'd  love  to,"  returned  Dessaix; 
"but  where  shall  I  find  milk?" 

"At  the  dairy,"  said  Napoleon,  with  a 
twinkle  in  his  eye. 

"  What  dairy  ?"  asked  Dessaix,  not  observ 
ing  the  twinkle. 

"  The  dromedary,"  said  Napoleon,  with  a 
roar. 

Little  incidents  like  this  served  to  keep 


MONTEBELLO — PARIS — EGYPT  119 

the  army  in  good  spirits  until  the  2ist  of 
July,  when  they  came  in  sight  of  the  pyra 
mids.  Instantly  Napoleon  called  a  halt,  and 
the  army  rested.  The  next  day,  drawing 
them  up  in  line,  the  General  addressed  them. 
"  Soldiers !"  he  cried,  pointing  to  the  pyra 
mids,  "  from  the  summits  of  those  pyramids 
forty  centuries  look  down  upon  you.  You 
can't  see  them,  but  they  are  there.  No  one 
should  look  down  upon  the  French,  not  even 
a  century.  Therefore,  I  ask  you,  shall  we 
allow  the  forces  of  the  Bey,  his  fellahs  and  his 
Tommylukes,  to  drive  us  into  the  desert  of 
Sahara,  bag  and  baggage,  to  subsist  on  a  sea- 
less  seashore  for  the  balance  of  our  days, 
particularly  when  they  haven't  any  wheels  on 
their  cannon?" 

"  No,  no  !"  cried  the  army. 

"  Then  up  sail  and  away  !"  cried  Bona 
parte.  "  This  is  to  be  no  naval  affair,  but 
the  army  of  the  Bey  awaits  us." 

"Tell  the  band  to  play  a  Wagner  march," 


he  whispered,  hastily,  to  his 
aide-de-camp.  "  It'll  make 
the  army  mad,  and  what  we 
need  now  is  wrath." 
So  began  the  battle  of  the  Pyramids.  The 
result  is  too  well  known  to  readers  of  contem 
porary  history  to  need  detailed  statement 
here.  All  day  long  it  raged,  and  when  night 
fell  Cairo  came  with  it.  Napoleon,  worn  out 
with  fatigue,  threw  himself  down  on  a  pyra 
mid  to  rest. 

"  Ah  !"  he  said,  as  he  breathed  a  sigh  of 
relief,  "what  a  glorious  day!  We've  beat 
'em  !  Won't  the  Directory  be  glad  ?  M.  Bar- 


MONTEBELLO — PARIS — EGYPT  121 

ras  will  be  more  M.  Barrassed  than  ever." 
Then,  turning  and  tapping  on  the  door  of  the 
massive  pile,  he  whispered,  softly  :  "  Ah  ! 
Ptolemy,  my  man,  it's  a  pity  you've  no  win 
dows  in  this  tomb.  You'd  have  seen  a  pret 
ty  sight  this  day.  Kleber,"  he  added,  turning 
to  that  general,  "do  you  know  why  Ptolemy 
inside  this  pyramid  and  I  outside  of  it  are 
alike?" 

"I  cannot  guess,  General,"  said  Kleber. 
"Why?" 

"  We're  both  '  in  it ' !"  returned  Napoleon, 
retiring  to  his  tent. 

Later  on  in  the  evening,  summoning  Bour- 
rienne,  the  victor  said  to  him ; 

"  Mr.  Secretary,  I  have  a  new  autograph. 
If  Ptolemy  can  spell  his  name  with  a  'p,'  why 
shouldn't  I  ?  I'm  not  going  to  have  history 
say  that  a  dead  mummy  could  do  things  I 
couldn't.  Pnapoleon  would  look  well  on  a 
state  paper" 

"  No  doubt,"  said  Bourrienne  •,  "  but  every 


122  MR.  BONAPARTE   OF   CORSICA 

one  now  says  that  you  copy  Caesar.  Why 
give  them  the  chance  to  call  you  an  imitator 
of  Ptolemy  also  ?" 

"  True,  my  friend,  true,"  returned  Napo 
leon,  in  a  tone  of  disappointment.  "  I  had 
not  thought  of  that.  When  you  write  my  au 
tographs  for  the  children  of  these  Jenny- 
lukes— " 

"  Mamelukes,  General,"  corrected  Bourri- 
enne. 

"Ah,  yes  —  I  always  get  mixed  in  these 
matters  —  for  the  children  of  these  Mame 
lukes,  you  may  stick  to  the  old  form.  Good 
night." 

And  with  that  the  conqueror  went  to  sleep 
as  peacefully  as  a  little  child. 

Had  Bonaparte  now  returned  to  France 
he  would  have  saved  himself  much  misery. 
King  of  fire  though  he  had  become  in  the 
eyes  of  the  vanquished,  his  bed  was  far  from 
being  one  of  roses. 

"In  aclimate  like  that,"  he  observed,  sadly, 


MONTEBELLO— PARIS— EGYPT  123 

many  years  after,  "  I'd  rather  have  been  an 
ice  baron.  Africa  got  entirely  too  hot  to  cut 
any  ice  with  me.  Ten  days  after  I  had  made 
myfriend  Ptolemy  turn  over  in  his  grave, 
Admiral  Nelson  came  along  with  an  English 
fleet  and  challenged  our  Admiral  Brueys 
to  a  shooting-match  for  the  championship  of 
Aboukir  Bay.  Brueys,  having  heard  of  what 
magazine  writers  call  the.  ships  of  the  desert 
in  my  control,  supposing  them  to  be  frigates 
and  not  camels,  imagined  himself  living  in 
Easy  Street,  and  accepted  the  challenge.  He 
expected  me  to  sail  around  to  the  other  side 
of  Nelson,  and  so  have  him  between,  two 
fires.  Well,  I  don't  go  to  sea  on  camels,  as 
you  know,  and  the  result  was  that  after  a 
twenty-four-hour  match  the  camels  were  the 
only  ships  we  had  left.  Nelson  had  won  the 
championship,  laid  the  corner-stone  of  mon 
uments  to  himself  all  over  English  territory, 
cut  me  off  from  France,  and  added  three  thou 
sand  sea-lubbers  to  my  force,  for  that  num- 


124 


MR.   BONAPARTE   OF   CORSICA 


her  of  French  sail 
ors  managed  to 
swim  ashore  dur 
ing  the  fight.  I 
manned  the  cam 
els  with  them  im 
mediately,  but  it 
took  them  months 
to  get  their  land 
legs  on,  and  the 
amount  of  grog 
they  demanded  would  have  made  a  quick 
sand  of  the  Desert  of  Sahara,  all  of  which 
was  embarrassing." 

But  Napoleon  did  not  show  his  embar 
rassment  to  those  about  him.  He  took  upon 
himself  the  government  of  Egypt,  opened 
canals,  and  undertook  to  behave  like  a  peace 
able  citizen  for  a  while. 

"  I  needed  rest,  and  I  got  it,"  he  said. 
"  Sitting  on  the  apex  of  the  pyramids,  I  could 
see  the  whole  world  at  my  feet,  and  whatever 


MONTEBELLO — PARIS — EGYPT  1 25 

others  may  say  to  the  contrary,  it  was  there 
that  I  began  to  get  a  clear  view  of  my  future. 
It  seemed  to  me  that  from  that  lofty  altitude, 
chumming,  as  I  was,  with  the  forty  centuries 
I  have  already  alluded  to,  I  could  see  two 
ways  at  once,  that  every  glance  could  pene 
trate  eternity ;  but  I  realize  now  that  what  I 
really  got  was  only  a  bird's-eye  view  of  the 
future.  I  didn't  see  that  speck  of  a  St.  Hele 
na.  If  I  had,  in  the  height  of  my  power  I 
should  have  despatched  an  expedition  of 
sappers  and  miners  to  blow  it  up." 

Quiescence  might  as  well  be  expected  of 
a  volcano,  however,  as  from  a  man  of  Bona 
parte's  temperament,  and  it  was  not  long  be 
fore  he  was  again  engaged  in  warfare,  but 
not  with  his  old  success;  and  finally,  the 
plague  having  attacked  his  army,  Bonaparte, 
too  tender-hearted  to  see  it  suffer,  leaving 
opium  for  the  sick  and  instructions  for  Kle- 
ber,  whom  he  appointed  his  successor,  set  sail 
for  France  once  more  in  September,  1799. 


126 


MR.  BONAPARTE   OF   CORSICA 


"  Remember,  Kleber,  my  boy,"  he  said,  in 
parting,  "these  Mussulmen  are  a  queer  lot. 
Be  careful  how  you  treat  them.  If  you  be 
have  like  a  Christian  you're  lost.  I  don't 
want  to  go  back  to  France,  but  I  must.  I  got 
a  view  of  the  next  three  years  from  the  top  of 
Cheops  last  night  just  before  sunset,  and  if 
that  view  is  to  be  carried  out  my  presence  in 
Paris  is  positively  required.  The  people  are 
tired  of  the  addresses  given  by  the  old  Di 
rectory,  and  they're  seriously  thinking  of  get 
ting  out  a  new  one,  and  I  want  to  be  on  hand 
either  to  edit  it  or  to  secure  my  appointment 
to  some  lucrative  consulship." 


MONTEBELLO — PARIS — EGYPT  1 27 

"  You  ! — a  man  of  your  genius  after  a  con 
sulship  ?"  queried  Kleber,  astonished. 

"Yes,  I  have  joined  the  office-seekers, 
General ;  but  wait  till  you  hear  what  consul 
ship  it  is.  The  American  consul -general 
ship  at  London  is  worth  $70,000  a  year,  but 
mine — mine  in  contrast  to  that  is  as  golf  to 
muggins." 

"  And  what  shall  I  tell  the  reporters  about 
that  Jaffa  business  if  they  come  here  ?  That 
poison  scandal  is  sure  to  come  up,"  queried 
Kleber. 

''Treat  them  well.  Tell  the  truth  if  you 
know  it,  and — ah — invite  them  to  dinner," 
said  Bonaparte.  "  Give  them  all  the  deli 
cacies  of  the  season.  When  you  serve  the 
poisson,  let  it  be  with  one  's,'  and,  to  make 
assurance  doubly  sure,  flavor  the  wines  with 
the  quickest  you  have." 

"  Quickest  what  ?"  asked  Kleber,  who  was 
slightly  obtuse. 

"Humph  !"  sneered  Napoleon.     "On  sec- 


128  MR.  BONAPARTE   OF    CORSICA 

ond  thoughts,  if  re 
porters  bother  you, 
take    them    swim 
ming  where   the    croco 
diles  are  thickest — only 
either  don't  bathe   with 
them    yourself,  or   wear 
your  mail   bathing- suit. 
Furthermore,   remember 
that   what    little   of  the 
army  is  left  are  my  children." 

"  What?1'  cried  the  obtuse  Kle- 
ber.  "All  those?" 
"  They  are  my  children,  Kleber,"  said  Na 
poleon,  his  voice  shaking  with  emotion.  "  I 
am  young  to  be  the  head  of  so  large  a  fam 
ily,  but  the  fact  remains  as  I  have  said. 
They  may  feel  badly  at  my  going  away  and 
leaving  them  even  with  so  pleasing  a  hired 
man  as  yourself,  but  comfort  them,  let  them 
play  in  the  sand  all  they  please,  and  if  they 
want  to  know  why  papa  has  gone  away,  tell 


MONTEBELLO— PARIS— EGYPT 


129 


them  I've  gone  to  Paris  to  buy  them  some 
candy." 

With  these  words  Napoleon  embarked, 
and  on  the  i6th  of  October  Paris  received 
him  with  open  arms.  That  night  the  mem 
bers  of  the  Directory  came  down  with  chills 
and  fever. 


THE    I9TH    BRUMAIRE  — CONSUL  — THE    TUI- 
LERIES— CAROLINE 

1799 

HERE  is  no  question  about  my 
greatness  now,"  said  Napoleon,  as 
he  meditated  upon  his  position. 
"Even  if  the  Directory  were  not 
jealous  and  the  people  enthusiastic, 
the  number  of  relatives  I  have  dis 
covered  in  the  last  ten  days  would 
show  that  things  are  going  my  way.  I  have 
had  congratulatory  messages  from  800  aunts, 
950  uncles,  and  about  3800  needy  cousins 
since  my  arrival.  It  is  queer  how  big  a 


CONSUL— THE   TUILERIES 


family  a  lonely  man  finds  he 
has  when  his  star  begins  to 
twinkle.  Even  Joseph  is  glad 
to  see  me  now,  and  I  am  told 
that  the  ice-cream  men  serve  lit 
tle  vanilla  Napoleons  at  all  the 
swell  dinners.  Bourrienne,  our 
time  has  come !  Get  out  my 
most  threadbare  uniform,  fray  a 
few  of  my  collars  at  the  edges, 
and  shoot  a  few  holes  in  my  hat. 
I'll  go  out  and  take  a  walk  along 
the  Avenue  de  I'Ope'ra,  where 
the  people  can  see  me." 

"  There  isn't  any  such  street  in  Paris  yet, 
General,"  said  Bourrienne,  getting  out  his 
Paris  guide-book. 

"  Well,  there  ought  to  be,"  said  Napoleon. 
"What  streets  are  there?  I  must  be  seen 
or  I'll  be  forgotten." 

"  What's  the  matter  with  a  lounge  in  front 
of  the  Luxembourg  ?  That  will  make  a  con- 


132  MR.  BONAPARTE  OF   CORSICA 

trast  that  can't  help  affect  the  populace. 
You,  the  conqueror,  ill-clad,  unshaven,  and 
with  a  hat  full  of  bullet-holes,  walking  out 
side  the  palace,  with  the  incompetent  Di 
rectors  lodged  comfortably  inside,  will  make 
a  scene  that  is  bound  to  give  the  people 
food  for  thought." 

"Well  said!"  cried  Bonaparte.  "Here 
are  the  pistols ;  go  out  into  the  woods  and 
prepare  the  hat.  I'll  fray  the  collars." 

This  was  done,  and  the  effect  was  instan 
taneous.  The  public  perceived  the  point, 
and  sympathy  ran  so  high  that  a  public  din 
ner  was  offered  to  the  returned  warrior. 

"I  have  no  use  for  pomp,  Mr.  Toast-mas 
ter,"  he  said,  as  he  rose  to  speak  at  this  ban 
quet.  "  I  am  not  a  good  after-dinner  speak 
er,  but  I  want  the  people  of  France  to  know 
that  I  am  grateful  for  this  meal.  I  rise  only 
to  express  the  thanks  of  a  hungry  man  for 
this  timely  contribution  to  his  inner  self,  and 
I  wish  to  add  that  I  should  not  willingly 


134  MR.  BONAPARTE  OF   CORSICA 

have  added  to  the  already  heavy  tax  upon 
the  pockets  of  a  patriotic  people  by  accept 
ing  this  dinner,  if  it  were  not  for  the  de 
mands  of  nature.  It  is  only  the  direst  ne 
cessity  that  brings  me  here ;  for  one  must 
eat,  and  I  cannot  beg." 

These  remarks,  as  may  well  be  imagined, 
sent  a  thrill  of  enthusiasm  throughout  France 
and  filled  the  Directory  with  consternation. 
The  only  cloud  upon  Bonaparte's  horizon 
was  a  slight  coldness  which  arose  between 
himself  and  Josephine.  She  had  gone  to 
meet  him  on  his  arrival  at  Frejus,  but  by 
some  odd  mistake  took  the  road  to  Burgun 
dy,  while  Napoleon  came  by  way  of  Lyons. 
They  therefore  missed  each  other. 

"  I  could  not  help  it,"  she  said,  when  Na 
poleon  jealously  chided  her.  "  I've  travelled 
very  little,  and  the  geography  of  France  al 
ways  did  puzzle  me." 

"  It  is  common  -  sense  that  should  have 
guided  you,  not  knowledge  of  geography. 


CONSUL — THE   TUILERIES 


135 


When  I  sail  into  Port,  you  sail  into  Bur 
gundy — you,  the  only  woman  I  ever  loved !" 
cried  Napoleon,  passionately.  "  Hereafter, 
madame,  for  the  sake  of  our  step-children,  be 
more  circumspect.  At  this  time  I  cannot 
afford  a  trip  to  South  Dakota  for  the  purpose 
of  a  quiet  divorce,  nor  would  a  public  one 
pay  at  this  juncture; 
but  I  give  you  fair  warn 
ing  that  I  shall  not  for 
get  this  escapade,  and 
once  we  are  settled  in 
the — the  Whatistobe,  I 
shall  remember,  and 
another  only  woman 
I  have  ever  loved  will 
dawn  upon  your  hori 
zon." 

Bonaparte  was  now 
besieged  by  all  the 
military  personages  of 
France.  His  home 


136  MR.  BONAPARTE   OF   CORSICA 

became  the  Mecca  of  soldiers  of  all  kinds, 
and  in  order  to  hold  their  interest  the  hero 
of  the  day  found  it  necessary  to  draw  some 
what  upon  the  possessions  which  the  people 
were  convinced  he  was  without.  Never  an 
admirer  of  consistency,  France  admired  this 
more  than  ever.  It  was  a  paradox  that  this 
poverty-stricken  soldier  should  entertain  so 
lavishly,  and  the  people  admired  the  nerve 
which  prompted  him  to  do  it,  supposing, 
many  of  them,  that  his  creditors  were  men 
of  a  speculative  nature,  who  saw  in  the  man 
a  good-paying  future  investment. 

Thus  matters  went  until  the  evening  of 
the  i yth  Brumaire,  when  Napoleon  deemed 
that  he  had  been  on  parade  long  enough, 
and  that  the  hour  demanded  action. 

"This  is  the  month  of  Bromide,"  he  said. 

"Brumaire,"  whispered  Bourienne. 

"  I  said  Bromide,"  retorted  Napoleon, 
"  and  the  people  are  asleep.  Bromide  has 
that  effect.  That  is  why  I  call  it  Bromide, 


CONSUL— THE   TUILERIES 


137 


and  I  have  as  much  right  to  name  my 
months  as  any  one  else.  Wherefore  I  re 
peat,  this  is  the  month  of  Bromide,  and  the 
people  are  asleep !  I  will  now  wake  them 
up.  The  garrisons  of  Paris  and  the  Nation 
al  Guard  have  asked  me  to  review  them,  and 
I'm  going  to  do  it,  and  I've  a  new  set  of 
tictacs." 

"Tactics,  General,  tactics,"  implored  Bour- 
rienne. 

"There  is  no  use  discussing  words,  Mr. 
Secretary,"  retorted  Bonaparte.  "It  has 
always  been  the  criticism  of  my  opponents 
that  I  didn't  know  a  tactic  from  a  bedtick — 
well,  perhaps  I  don't;  and  for  that  reason  I 
am  not  going  to  talk  about  tactics  with 
which  I  am  not  familiar,  but  I  shall  speak  of 
tictacs,  which  is  a  game  I  have  played  from 
infancy,  and  of  which  I  am  a  master.  I'm 
going  to  get  up  a  new  government,  Bourri- 
enne.  Summon  all  the  generals  in  town,  in 
cluding  Bernadotte.  They're  all  with  me 


138  MR.  BONAPARTE  OF   CORSICA 

except  Bernadotte,  and  he'll  be  so  unpleas 
ant  about  what  I  tell  him  to  do  that  he'll 
make  all  the  others  so  mad  they'll  stick  by 
me  through  thick  and  thin.  If  there's  any 
irritating  work  to  be  done,  let  Joseph  do 
it.  He  has  been  well  trained  in  the  art 
of  irritation.  I  have  seen  Sieyes  and  Du- 
cos,  and  have  promised  them  front  seats  in 
the  new  government  which  my  tictacs  are  to 
bring  about.  Barras  won't  have  the  nerve 
to  oppose  me,  and  Gohier  and  Moulin  have 
had  the  ague  for  weeks.  We'll  have  the 
review,  and  my  first  order  to  the  troops  will 
be  to  carry  humps ;  the  second  will  be  to 
forward  march;  and  the  third  will  involve 
the  closing  of  a  long  lease,  in  my  name,  of 
the  Luxembourg  Palace,  with  a  salary  con 
nected  with  every  room  in  the  house." 

It  is  needless  for  us  to  go  into  details. 
The  review  came  off  as  Napoleon  wished, 
and  his  orders  were  implicitly  obeyed,  with 
the  result  that  on  the  iQth  of  Brumaire  the 


CONSUL— THE  TUILERIES 


139 


Directory  was  filed  away, 
and  Napoleon  Bonaparte, 
with  Sieyes  and  Ducos  as  fel 
low-consuls,  were  called  upon 
to  save  France  from  anarchy. 

"  Well,  Josephine,"  said 
Bonaparte,  on  the  evening  of 
the  iQth,  as  he  put  his  boots 
outside  of  the  door  of  his  new 
apartment  in  the  Luxem 
bourg,  "this  is  better  than 
living  in  a  flat,  and  I  must 
confess  I  find  the  feather- 
beds  of  the  palace  more  in 
viting  than  a  couch  of  sand  under  a  date-tree 
in  Africa." 

"And  what  are  you  going  to  do  next?" 
asked  Josephine. 

"  Ha  !"  laughed  Napoleon,  blowing  out  the 
candle.  "There's  a  woman's  curiosity  for 
you  !  The  continuation  of  this  entertaining 
story,  my  love,  will  be  found  in  volume  two 


140  MR.  BONAPARTE   OF   CORSICA 

of  Bourrienne's  attractive  history,  From  the 
Tow-path  to  the  Tuileries,  now  in  course  of 
preparation,  and  for  sale  by  all  accredited 
agents  at  the  low  price  often  francs  a  copy." 

With  this  remark  Napoleon  jumped  into 
bed,  and  on  the  authority  of  M.  le  Comte 

de  Q ,  at  this  time  Charge'  d'Affaires  of 

the  Luxembourg,  and  later  on  Janitor  of  the 
Tuileries,  was  soon  dreaming  of  the  Empire. 

The  Directory  overthrown,  Bonaparte  turn 
ed  his  attention  to  the  overthrow  of  the  Con 
sulate. 

"Gentlemen,"  he  said  to  his  fellow-con 
suls,  "I  admire  you  personally  very  much, 
and  no  doubt  you  will  both  of  you  agree  in 
most  matters,  but  as  I  am  fearful  lest  you 
should  disagree  on  matters  of  importance, 
and  so  break  that  beautiful  friendship  which 
I  am  pleased  to  see  that  you  have  for  each 
other,  I  shall  myself  cast  a  deciding  vote  in 
all  matters,  large  or  small.  This  will  enable 
you  to  avoid  differences,  and  to  continue 


142  MR.  BONAPARTE   OF   CORSICA 

in  that  spirit  of  amity  which  I  have  always 
so  much  admired  in  your  relations.  You 
can  work  as  hard  as  you  please,  but  before 
committing  yourselves  to  anything,  consult 
me,  not  each  other.  What  is  a  Consul  for 
if  not  for  a  consultation  ?" 

Against  this  Sieyes  and  Ducos  were  in 
clined  to  rebel,  but  Bonaparte  soon  dispelled 
their  opposition.  Ringing  his  bell,  he  sum 
moned  an  aide-de-camp,  whispered  a  few 
words  in  his  ear,  and  then  leaned  quietly 
back  in  his  chair.  The  aide-de-camp  re 
tired,  and  two  minutes  later  the  army  sta 
tioned  without  began  shouting  most  en 
thusiastically  for  Bonaparte.  The  General 
walked  to  the  window  and  bowed,  and  the 
air  was  rent  with  huzzas  and  vivas. 

"  I  guess  he's  right,"  whispered  Sieyes,  as 
the  shouting  grew  more  and  more  vigorous. 

"Guess  again,"  growled  Ducos. 

"  You  were  saying,  gentlemen — ?"  said  Bo 
naparte,  returning. 


CONSUL— THE  TUILERIES 


"  That  we  are  like 
ly  to  have  rain  be 
fore  long,"  said  Sie- 
yes,  quickly. 

"I  shouldn't  be 
surprised,"  returned 
Napoleon,  "and  I'd 
advise  you  laymen  to 
provide  yourselves 
with  umbrellas  when 
the  rain  begins.  I, 
as  a  soldier,  shall 
not  feel  the  inclem 
ency  of  the  weather 
that  is  about  to  set 
in.  And,  by-the- 
way,  Sieyes,  please  prepare  a  new  Constitu 
tion  for  France,  providing  for  a  single-head 
ed  commission  to  rule  the  country.  Ducos, 
you  need  rest.  Pray  take  a  vacation  until 
further  notice;  I'll  attend  to  matters  here. 
On  your  way  down-stairs  knock  at  Bourri- 


144  MR.  BONAPARTE  OF   CORSICA 

enne's  door,  and  tell  him  I  want  to  see  him. 
I  have  a  few  more  memoirs  for  his  book." 

With  these  words  Bonaparte  adjourned 
the  meeting.  Sieyes  went  home  and  drew 
up  the  Constitution,  and  M.  Ducos  retired 
to  private  life  for  rest.  The  Constitution  of 
Sieyes  was  a  clever  instrument,  but  Bona 
parte  rendered  it  unavailing.  It  provided 
for  three  consuls,  but  one  of  them  was  prac 
tically  given  all  the  power,  and  the  others 
became  merely  his  clerks. 

"This  is  as  it  should  be,"  said  Bonaparte, 
when  by  4,000,000  votes  the  Constitution 
was  ratified  by  the  people.  "These  three- 
headed  governments  are  apt  to  be  failures, 
particularly  when  two  of  the  heads  are 
worthless.  Cambaceres  makes  a  first-rate 
bottle-holder,  and  Lebrun  is  a  competent 
stenographer,  but  as  for  directing  France  in 
the  line  of  her  destiny  they  are  of  no  use. 
I  will  now  move  into  the  Tuileries.  I  hate 
pomp,  as  I  have  often  said,  but  Paris  must 


CONSUL— THE   TUILERIES  145 

be  dazzled.  We  can't  rent  the  palace  for  a 
hotel,  and  it's  a  pity  to  let  so  much  space  go 
to  waste.  Josephine,  pack  up  your  trunk, 
and  tell  Bourrienne  to  have  a  truckman  here 
at  eleven  sharp.  To-morrow  night  we  will 
dine  at  the  Tuileries,  and  for  Heaven's  sake 
see  to  it  that  the  bottles  are  cold  and  the 
birds  are  hot.  For  the  sake  of  the  Republic 
also,  that  we  may  not  appear  too  ostenta 
tious  in  our  living,  you  may  serve  cream  with 
the  demi-tasse.'1'1 


146  MR.  BONAPARTE   OF   CORSICA 

Once  established  in  the  Tuileries,  Bona 
parte  became  in  reality  the  king,  and  his 
family  who  had  for  a  long  time  gone  a-beg 
ging  began  to  assume  airs  of  importance, 
which  were  impressive.  His  sisters  began 
to  be  invited  out,  and  were  referred  to  by  the 
society  papers  as  most  eligible  young  per 
sons.  Their  manner,  however,  was  some 
what  in  advance  of  their  position.  Had 
their  brother  been  actually  king  and  them 
selves  of  royal  birth  they  could  not  have 
conducted  themselves  more  haughtily.  This 
was  never  so  fully  demonstrated  as  when,  at 
a  ball  given  in  their  honor  at  Marseilles,  an 
old  friend  of  the  family  who  had  been  out 
rageously  snubbed  by  Caroline,  asked  her 
why  she  wore  her  nose  turned  up  so  high. 

"  Because  my  brother  is  reigning  in  Paris,'* 
she  retorted. 

In  this  she  but  voiced  the  popular  senti 
ment,  and  the  remark  was  received  with  ap 
plause  ;  and  later,  Murat,  who  had  distin- 


CONSUL — THE   TUILERIES  147 

guished  himself  as  a  military  man,  desirous 
of  allying  himself  with  the  rising  house,  de 
manded  her  hand  in  marriage. 

"You?''  cried  the  First  Consul.  "Why, 
Murat,  your  father  kept  an  inn." 

"  I  know  it,"  said  Murat.  "  But  what  of 
that?"  MJ.J 

"  My  blood  must  not  be  mixed  with  yours, 
that's  what,"  said  Bonaparte. 

"Very  well,  Mr.  Bonaparte,"  said  Murat, 
angrily,  "  let  it  be  so  ;  but  I  tell  you  one 
thing :  When  you  see  the  bills  Caroline  is 
running  up  you'll  find  it  would  have  been 
money  in  your  pocket  to  transfer  her  to  me. 
As  for  the  inn  business,  my  governor  never 
served  such  atrocious  meals  at  his  table- 
d'hote  as  you  serve  to  your  guests  at  state 
banquets,  and  don't  you  forget  it." 

Whether  these  arguments  overcame  Bona 
parte's  scruples  or  not  is  not  known,  but  a 
few  days  later  he  relented,  and  Caroline  be 
came  the  wife  of  Murat. 


148  MR.  BONAPARTE  OF  CORSICA 

"I  never  regretted  it,"  said  Bonaparte, 
some  years  later.  "Murat  was  a  good 
brother-in-law  to  me,  and  he  taught  me  an 
invaluable  lesson  in  the  giving  of  state  ban 
quets,  which  was  that  one  portion  is  always 
enough  for  three.  And  as  for  parting  with 
my  dear  sister,  that  did  not  disturb  me  very 
much;  for,  truly,  Talleyrand,  Caroline  was 
the  only  woman  I  never  loved." 


THE  ALPS — THE    EMPIRE — THE    CORONATION 
1800-1804 

OBSERVE,"  said  Bonaparte,  now  that 
he  was  seated  on  the  consular  throne, 
"that  one  of  my  biographers  states 
that,  under  a  man  of  ordinary  vigor 
this  new  Constitution  of  Sieyes  and 
another  our  government  would  be  free 
and  popular,  but  that  under  myself  it 
has  become  an  unlimited  monarchy. 
That  man  is  right.  I  am  now  a  potentate 
of  the  most  potent  kind.  I  got  a  letter 
from  the  Bourbons  last  night  requesting 
me  to  restore  them  to  the  throne.  Two 


150  MR.  BONAPARTE  OF  CORSICA 

years  ago  they  wouldn't  have  given  me  their 
autographs  for  my  collection,  but  now  they 
want  me  to  get  up  from  my  seat  in  this  car 
of  state  and  let  them  sit  down." 

"And  you  replied — ?"  asked  Josephine. 

"That  I  didn't  care  for  Bourbon  —  rye 
suits  me  better,"  laughed  the  Consul,  "  un 
less  I  can  get  Scotch,  which  I  prefer  at  all 
times.  Feeling  this  way,  I  cannot  permit 
Louis  to  come  back  yet  awhile.  Meantime, 
in  the  hope  of  replenishing  our  cellars  with 
a  few  bottles  of  Glenlivet,  I  will  write  a  let 
ter  of  pacification  to  George  III.,  one  of 
the  most  gorgeous  rex  in  Madame  Tus- 
saud's  collection  of  living  potentates." 

This  Bonaparte  did,  asking  the  English 
king  if  he  hadn't  had  enough  war  for  the 
present.  George,  through  the  eyes  of  his 
ministers,  perceived  Bonaparte's  point,  and 
replied  that  he  was  very  desirous  for  peace 
himself,  but  that  at  present  the  market 
seemed  to  be  cornered,  and  that  therefore 


THE   EMPIRE — THE   CORONATION        151 


the  war  must  go  on.  This  reply  amused 
Napoleon. 

"  It  suits  me  to  the  ground,"  he  said, 
addressing  Talleyrand.  "  A  year  of  peace 
would  interfere  materially  with  my  future. 
If  Paris  were  Philadelphia,  it  would  be  an 
other  thing.  There  one  may  rest — there  is 
no  popular  demand  for  excitement — Penn 
was  mightier  than  the  sword — but  here  one 
has  to  be  in  a  broil  constantly ;  to  be  a  chef 
one  must  be  eternally  cooking,  and  the  re 
sults  must  be  of  the  kind  that  requires  extra 
editions  of  the  evening  papers.  The  day  the 
newsboys  stop  shouting  my  name,  my  sun 
will  set  for  the  last  time.  Even  now  the 
populace  are  murmuring,  for  nothing  star 
tling  has  occurred  this  week,  which  reminds 
me,  I  wish  to  see  Fouche.  Send  him  here." 

Talleyrand  sent  for  the  Minister  of  Police, 
who  responded  to  the  summons. 

"  Fouche,"  said  Bonaparte,  sternly,"  what 
are  we  here  for,  salary  or  glory  ?" 


"  Glory,  General." 

"  Precisely.  Now,  as  head  of  the  Police 
Department,  are  you  aware  that  no  attempt 
to  assassinate  me  has  been  made  for  two 
weeks  ?" 

"Yes,  General,  but—  " 

"Has  the  assassin  appropriation  run 
out?  Have  the  assassins  struck  for  higher 
wages,  or  are  you  simply  careless  ?"  de 
manded  the  First  Consul.  "I  warn  you, 


THE   EMPIRE— THE   CORONATION        153 

sir,  that  I  wish  no  excuses,  and  I  will  add 
that  unless  an  attempt  is  made  on  my  life 
before  ten  o'clock  to-night,  you  lose  your 
place.  The  French  people  must  be  kept 
interested  in  this  performance,  and  how  the 
deuce  it  is  to  be  done  without  advertising  I 
don't  know.  Go,  and  remember  that  I  shall 
be  at  home  to  assassins  on  Thursdays  of 
alternate  weeks  until  further  notice." 

"Your  Consulship's  wishes  shall  be  re 
spected,"  said  Fouche,  with  a  low  bow. 
"  But  I  must  say  one  word  in  my  own  be 
half.  You  were  to  have  had  a  dynamite 
bomb  thrown  at  you  yesterday  by  one  of 
my  employes,  but  the  brave  fellow  who 
was  to  have  stood  between  you  and  death 
disappointed  me.  He  failed  to  turn  up  at 
the  appointed  hour,  and  so,  of  course,  the 
assault  didn't  come  off." 

"  Couldn't  you  find  a  substitute  ?"  de 
manded  Bonaparte. 

"I   could    not,"  said    Fouche'.      "There 


154  MR.  BONAPARTE   OF   CORSICA 

aren't  many  persons  in  Paris  who  care  for 
that  kind  of  employment.  They'd  rather 
shovel  snow." 

"You  are  a  gay  stage-manager,  you  are  !" 
snapped  Bonaparte.  "  My  brother  Joseph 
is  in  town,  and  yet  you  say  you  couldn't 
find  a  man  to  be  hit  by  a  bomb.  Leave  me, 
Fouche.  You  give  me  the  ennuis" 

Fouche  departed  with  Talleyrand,  to 
whom  he  expressed  his  indignation  at  the 
First  Consul's  reprimand. 

"  He  insists  upon  an  attempted  assassina 
tion  every  week,"  he  said ;  "  and  I  tell  you, 
Talleyrand,  it  isn't  easy  to  get  these  things 
up.  The  market  is  long  on  real  assassins, 
fellows  who'd  kill  him  for  the  mere  fun  of 
hearing  his  last  words,  but  when  it  comes 
to  playing  to  the  galleries  with  a  mock  at 
tempt  with  real  consequences  to  the  would- 
be  murderers,  they  fight  shy  of  it." 

Nevertheless,  Fouche  learned  from  the 
interview  with  Bonaparte  that  the  First 


THE   EMPIRE — THE   CORONATION 


155 


Consul  was  not  to  be  trifled  with,  and 
hardly  a  day  passed  without  some  exciting 
episode  in  this  line,  in  which,  of  course, 
Napoleon  always  came  out  unscathed  and 
much  endeared  to  the  populace.  This, 
however,  could  not  go  on  forever.  The 


156  MR.  BONAPARTE  OF   CORSICA 

fickle  French  soon  wearied  of  the  series  of 
unsuccessful  attempts  on  the  Consul's  life, 
and  some  began  to  suspect  the  true  state 
of  affairs. 

"They're  on  to  our  scheme,  General," 
said  Fouche,  after  a  while.  "  You've  got  to 
do  something  new." 

"  What  would  you  suggest  ?"  asked  Na 
poleon,  wearily. 

"  Can't  you  write  a  book  of  poems,  or  a 
three-volume  novel  ?"  suggested  Talleyrand. 

"  Or  resign,  and  let  Sieves  run  things  for 
a  while?"  said  Fouche'.  "If  they  had  an 
other  Consul  for  a  few  months,  they'd  appre 
ciate  what  a  vaudeville  show  they  lost  in 
you." 

"  I'd  rather  cross  the  Alps,"  said  Bona 
parte.  "  I  don't  like  to  resign.  Moving  is 
such  a  nuisance,  and  I  must  say  I  find  the 
Tuileries  a  very  pleasant  place  of  abode. 
It's  more  fun  than  you  can  imagine  rum 
maging  through  the  late  king's  old  bureau- 


THE   EMPIRE— THE  CORONATION        157 

drawers.     Suppose  I  get  up  a  new  army 
and  lead  it  over  the  Alps." 

"  Just  the  thing,"  said  Talleyrand.  "  Only 
it  will  be  a  very  snowy  trip." 

"  I'm  used  to  snow-balls,"  said  Napoleon, 
his  mind  reverting  to  the  episode  which 
brought  his  career  at  Brienne  to  a  close. 
"Just  order  an  army  and  a  mule  and  I'll 
set  out.  Meanwhile,  Fouche,  see  that  the 
Bourbons  have  a  conspiracy  to  be  un 
earthed  in  time  for  the  Sunday  news 
papers  every  week  during  my  absence.  I 
think  it  would  be  well,  too,  to  keep  a  war- 
correspondent  at  work  in  your  office  night 
and  day,  writing  despatches  about  my 
progress.  Give  him  a  good  book  on  Han 
nibal's  trip  to  study,  and  let  him  fill  in  a 
column  or  two  every  day  with  anecdotes 
about  myself,  and  at  convenient  intervals 
unsuccessful  attempts  to  assassinate  Jo 
sephine  may  come  in  handy.  Let  it  be 
rumored  often  that  I  have  been  over- 


whelmed  by  an  avalanche  —  in  short,  keep 
the  interest  up." 

So  it  was  that  Bonaparte  set  out  upon  his 
perilous  expedition  over  the  Great  St.  Ber 
nard.  On  the  1 5th  day  of  May,  1800,  the 
task  of  starting  the  army  in  motion  was  be 
gun,  and  on  the  i8th  every  column  was  in 
full  swing.  Lannes,  with  an  advance  guard 
armed  with  snow-shovels,  took  the  lead,  and 
Bonaparte,  commanding  the  rear  guard  of 
35,000  men  and  the  artillery,  followed. 


THE   EMPIRE— THE   CORONATION         159 

"  Soldiers !"  he  cried,  as  they  came  near 
to  the  snow-bound  heights,  "we  cannot 
have  our  plum -cake  without  its  frosting. 
Like  children,  we  will  have  the  frosting  first 
and  the  cake  later.  Lannes  and  his  fol 
lowers  have  not  cleaned  the  snow  off  as 
thoroughly  as  I  had  hoped,  but  I  fancy  he 
has  done  the  best  he  can,  and  it  is  not  for 
us  to  complain.  Let  us  on.  The  up-trip 
will  be  cold  and  tedious,  but  once  on  the 
summit  of  yonder  icy  ridge  we  can  seat 
ourselves  comfortably  on  our  guns  and 
slide  down  into  the  lovely  valleys  on  the 
other  side  like  a  band  of  merry  school-boys 
on  toboggans.  Above  all,  do  not  forget 
the  chief  duty  of  a  soldier  in  times  of 
peril.  In  spke  of  the  snow  and  the  ice, 
in  spite  of  the  blizzard  and  the  sleet,  keep 
cool ;  and,  furthermore,  remember  that  in 
this  climate,  if  your  ears  don't  hurt,  it's  a 
sign  they  are  freezing.  En  avant !  Nous 
sommes  le  peuple" 


l6o  MR.  BONAPARTE   OF   CORSICA 

The  army  readily  responded  to  such 
hopeful  words,  and  as  Bonaparte  mani 
fested  quite  as  much  willingness  to  walk  as 
the  meanest  soldier,  disdaining  to  ride,  ex 
cept  occasionally,  and  even  then  on  the 
back  of  a  mule,  be  became  their  idol. 

"  He  does  not  spare  himself  any  more 
than  he  does  us,"  said  one  of  his  soldiers, 
"  and  he  can  pack  a  snow-ball  with  the  best 
of  us." 

The  General  catered,  too,  to  the  amuse 
ment  of  his  troops,  and  the  brasses  of  the 
band  broke  the  icy  stillness  of  the  great 
hills  continually. 

"  Music's  the  thing,"  he  cried,  many  years 
later,  "  and  when  we  got  to  the  top  we  had 
the  most  original  roof-garden  you  ever  saw. 
It  was  most  inspiring,  and  the  only  thing 
that  worried  me  at  all  was  as  to  how  Fouche 
was  conducting  our  anecdote  and  assassi 
nation  enterprise  at  home.  Once  on  top  of 
the  Alps,  the  descent  was  easy.  We  simply 


WE  SIMPLY   LAY  DOWN  ON  OUR  ARMS  AND  SLID  ' 


162  MR.  BONAPARTE  OF   CORSICA 

lay  down  on  our  arms  and  slid.  Down  the 
mountain-side  we  thundered,  and  the  Aus- 
trians,  when  they  observed  our  impetus, 
gave  way  before  us,  and  the  first  thing  I 
knew  I  skated  slam-bang  into  the  Empire. 
Our  avalanchian  descent  subjugated  Italy; 
frightened  the  Englishmen  to  Alexandria, 
where,  in  the  absence  of  a  well -organized 
force,  they  managed  to  triumph ;  scared  the 
Pope  so  thoroughly  that  he  was  willing  to 
sign  anything  I  wished ;  and,  best  of  all, 
after  a  few  petty  delays,  convinced  the 
French  people  that  I  was  too  big  a  man 
for  a  mere  consulship.  It  was  my  chamois- 
like  agility  in  getting  down  the  Alps  that 
really  made  me  Emperor.  As  for  the  army, 
it  fought  nobly.  It  was  so  thoroughly 
chilled  by  the  Alpine  venture  that  it  fought 
desperately  to  get  warm.  My  grenadiers, 
congealed  to  their  very  souls,  went  where 
the  fire  was  hottest.  They  seized  bomb 
shells  while  they  were  yet  in  the  air,  warmed 


THE   EMPIRE — THE   CORONATION         163 

their  hands  upon  them,  and  then  threw 
them  back  into  the  enemy's  camp,  where 
they  exploded  with  great  carnage.  They 
did  not  even  know  when  they  were  killed, 
so  benumbed  by  the  cold  had  they  become. 
In  short,  those  days  on  the  Alps  made  us 
invincible.  No  wonder,  then,  that  in  1804, 
when  I  got  permanently  back  to  Paris,  I 
found  the  people  ready  for  an  emperor ! 
They  were  bloody  years,  those  from  1800  to 
1804,  but  it  was  not  entirely  my  fault.  I 
shed  very  little  myself,  but  the  English  and 


164  MR.  BONAPARTE  OF  CORSICA 

the  Austrians  and  the  royalist  followers 
would  have  it  so,  and  I  had  to  accommo 
date  them.  I  did  not  wish  to  execute  the 
Due  d'Enghien,  but  he  would  interfere  with 
Fouche  by  getting  up  conspiracies  on  his 
own  account,  when  I  had  given  the  con 
spiracy  contract  to  one  of  my  own  minis 
ters.  The  poor  fellow  had  to  die.  It  was 
a  case  of  no  die,  no  Empire,  and  I  thought 
it  best  for  the  French  people  that  they 
should  have  an  Empire." 

Those  who  criticise  Bonaparte's  acts  in 
these  years  should  consider  these  words,  and 
remember  that  the  great  warrior  in  no  case 
did  any  of  the  killing  himself. 

It  was  on  the  i8th  of  May,  1804,  that  the 
Empire  was  proclaimed  and  Napoleon  as 
sumed  his  new  title  amid  great  rejoicing. 

"  Now  for  the  coronation,"  he  said.  "  This 
thing  must  go  off  in  style,  Fouche.  Whom 
shall  I  have  to  crown  me  ?" 

"Well,"  said  Fouche,  "if  you  are  after  a 


THE   EMPIRE — THE   CORONATION        165 

sensation,  I'd  send  for  Louis  de  Bourbon ; 
if  you  want  it  to  go  off  easily,  I'd  send  for 
your  old  hatter  in  the  Rue  de  Victoire  ;  if 
you  want  to  give  it  a  ceremonial  touch,  I'd 
send  for  the  Pope,  but,  on  the  whole,  I  rath 
er  think  I'd  do  it  myself.  You  picked  it 
up  yourself,  why  not  put  it  on  your  own 
head  ?" 

"  Good  idea,"  returned  Bonaparte.  "  And 
highly  original.  You  may  increase  your 
salary  a  hundred  francs  a  week,  Fouche. 


166  MR.  BONAPARTE   OF   CORSICA 

I'll  crown  myself,  but  I  think  it  ought  to 
come  as  a  surprise,  don't  you  ?" 

"  Yes,"  said  Fouche.  "  That  is,  if  you  can 
surprise  the  French  people — which  I  doubt. 
If  you  walked  into  Notre  Dame  to-morrow 
on  your  hands,  with  the  crown  of  France  on 
one  foot  and  the  diadem  of  Italy  on  the 
other,  the  people  wouldn't  be  a  bit  surprised 
— you're  always  doing  such  things." 

"  Nevertheless,"  said  Napoleon,  "  we'll 
surprise  them.  Send  word  to  the  Pope  that 
I  want  to  see  him  officially  on  December  2d 
at  Notre  Dame.  If  he  hesitates  about  com 
ing,  tell  him  I'll  walk  over  and  bring  him 
myself  the  first  clear  day  we  have." 

This  plan  was  followed  out  to  the  letter, 
and  the  Pope,  leaving  Rome  on  the  5th  of 
November,  entered  Paris  to  crown  the  Em 
peror  and  Empress  of  the  French  on  De 
cember  2,  1804,  as  requested.  What  sub 
sequently  followed  the  world  knows.  Just 
as  the  Pope  was  about  to  place  the  imperial 


THE   EMPEROR  SEIZED   THE   DIADEM   WITH   HIS  OWN   HANDS 


diadem  on  the  brow  of  Bonaparte,  the  Em 
peror  seized  it  and  with  his  own  hands 
placed  it  there. 

"  Excuse  me,  your  Holiness,"  he  said, 
as  he  did  so,  "  but  the  joke  is  on  you.  This 
is  my  crown,  and  I  think  I'm  a  big  enough 
man  to  hang  it  up  where  it  belongs." 

Pius  VII.  was  much  chagrined,  but,  like 
the  good  man  that  he  was,  he  did  not  show 
it,  nor  did  he  resent  the  Emperor's  second 
interference  when  it  came  to  the  crowning 
of  Josephine.  The  coronation  over,  Napo 
leon  and  Josephine  turned  to  the  splendid 
audience,  and  marched  down  the  centre  aisle 
to  the  door,  where  they  entered  a  superb 
golden  carriage  in  which,  amid  the  plaudits 
of  the  people,  they  drove  to  the  Tuileries. 


THE   EMPIRE— THE   CORONATION 


I69 


"  Ah — at  last !"  said  Bonaparte,  as  he  en 
tered  the  Palace.  "  I  have  got  there.  The 
thing  to  do  now  is  to  stay  there.  Ah,  me  !" 
he  added,  with  a  sigh.  "  These  French — 
these  French  !  they  are  as  fickle  as  the  only 
woman  I  have  ever  loved.  By -the -way, 
Josephine,  what  was  it  you  asked  me  on  the 
way  down  the  aisle?  The  people  howled 
so  I  couldn't  hear  you." 

"  I  only  asked  you  if "  —  here  the  Em 
press  hesitated. 

"Well?  If  what  ?"  frown 
ed  the  Emperor. 

"  If  my  crown  was  on 
straight,"  returned  Joseph 
ine. 

"  Madame,"  said  the  Em 
peror,  sternly,  "  when  you 
are  prompted  to  ask  that 
question  again,  remember 
who  gave  you  that  crown, 
and  when  you  remember 


I/O  MR.  BONAPARTE   OF   CORSICA 

that  it  was  I,  remember  also  that  when  I 
give  anything  to  anybody  I  give  it  to  them 
straight." 

Here  the  Emperor's  frown  relaxed,  and 
he  burst  out  into  laughter. 

"  But  that  was  a  bad  break  of  the  organ 
ist  !"  he  said. 

"  Which  was  that  ?"  asked  Josephine. 

"  Why— didn't  you  notice  when  the  Pope 
came  in  he  played  '  Tiara  Boom-de-ay '  ?" 
said  Bonaparte,  with  a  roar.  "  It  was  awful 
— I  shall  have  to  send  him  &pourboire" 


THE   RISE   OF   THE   EMPIRE 
1805-1810 

HAT  next  ?"  asked  Fouche, 
the    morning    after    the 
coronation,  as  he  entered 
the  Emperor's  cabinet. 
Breakfast,"    returned    Bona 
parte,  laconically  ;  "what  did  you 
suppose  ?      You    didn't    think    I 
was     going     swimming    in     the 
Seine,  did  you  ?" 

"  I  never  think,"  retorted  Fou 
che. 


172  MR.  BONAPARTE   OF   CORSICA 

"That's  evident,"  said  Napoleon.  "Is 
the  arch  -  treasurer  of  my  empire  up  yet? 
The  Empress  is  going  shopping,  and  wants 
an  appropriation." 

"  He  is,  Your  Majesty,"  said  Fouche,  look 
ing  at  his  memorandum-book.  "  He  rose  at 
7:30,  dressed  as  usual,  parted  his  hair  on  the 
left-hand  side,  and  breakfasted  at  eight.  At 
8:15  he  read  the  Moniteur,  and  sneezed  twice 
while  perusing  the  second  column  of  the 
fourth  page — " 

"  What  is  the  meaning  of  these  petty  de 
tails?"  cried  the  Emperor,  impatiently. 

"  I  merely  wished  to  show  Your  Majesty 
that  as  the  Sherlock  Holmes  of  this  admin 
istration  I  am  doing  my  duty.  There  isn't  a 
man  in  France  who  is  not  being  shadowed  in 
your  behalf,"  returned  the  minister  of  police. 

The  Emperor  looked  out  of  the  window ; 
then,  turning  to  Fouche,  he  said,  the  stern, 
impatient  look  fading  into  softness,  "  Par 
don  my  irritability,  Fouche.  You  are  a  gen- 


THE   RISE   OF   THE    EMPIRE 


173 


ius,  and  I  appreciate  you,  though  I  may  not 
always  show  it.  I  didn't  sleep  well  last 
night,  and  in  consequence  I  am  not  unduly 
amiable  this  morning." 

"Your  Majesty  is  not  ill,  I  trust?"  said 
Fouche,  with  a  show  of  anxiety. 

"  No,"  replied  the  Emperor.  "The  fact  is, 
old  man,  I — ah — I  forgot  to  take  the  crown 
off  when  I  went  to  bed." 

Thus  began  that  wonderful  reign  which 
forms  so  many  dazzling  pages  in  modern 
history.     Bonaparte's  first  act  after  pro 
viding    lucrative    positions   for    his 
family  was  to  write  another  letter, 
couched    in    language    of    a 
most  fraternal  nature,  to  the 
King  of  England,  asking  for 
peace. 


174  MR-  BONAPARTE   OF   CORSICA 

"  Dear  Cousin  George,"  he  wrote,  "  you 
have  probably  read  in  the  newspapers  by 
this  time  that  I'm  working  under  a  new 
alias,  and  I  hope  you  will  like  it  as  well  as 
I  do.  It's  great  fun,  but  there  is  one  feat 
ure  of  it  all  that  I  don't  like.  I  hate  to  be 
fighting  with  my  new  cousins  all  the  time, 
and  particularly  with  you  whom  I  have  al 
ways  loved  deeply,  though  secretly.  Now, 
my  dear  George,  let  me  ask  you  what's  the 
use  of  a  prolonged  fight  ?  You've  waxed  fat 
in  ten  years,  and  so  have  I.  We've  painted 
the  earth  red  between  us.  Why  can't  we  be 
satisfied  ?  Why  should  our  relations  continue 
to  be  strained?  I've  got  some  personal  re 
lations  I'd  like  to  have  strained,  but  I  can 
attend  to  them  myself.  Let  us  have  peace. 
I  don't  want  too  big  a  piece.  Give  me 
enough,  and  you  can  have  the  rest.  Let 
us  restore  the  entente  cordiale  and  go  about 
our  business  without  any  further  scrapping. 
'Let  dogs  delight  to  bark  and  bite,'  as 


THE    RISE    OF    THE    EMPIRE 


175 


your  illustrious  poet  hath  it,  'for  'tis  their 
nature  to.'  As  for  us,  the  earth  is  large 
enough  for  both.  You  take  the  Western 
Hemisphere  and  I'll  keep  this.  Russia  and 
the  others  can  have  what  remains. 
Yours  truly, 

NAPOLEON, 
Emperor  of  the  French. 

"P.S.— I  enclose  a 
stamped  and  directed 
envelope  for  a  reply, 
and  if  I  don't  get  it 
inside  of  two  weeks 
I'll  come  over  and 
smoke  you  out." 

To  this  peace-seek 
ing  communication 
England,  through  her 
ministers,  replied  to 
the  effect  that  she 


176  MR.  BONAPARTE  OF   CORSICA 

wanted  peace  as  much  as  France  did,  but 
that  she  could  not  enter  into  it  without  the 
consent  of  Russia. 

"That  settles  it,"  said  Napoleon.  "It's 
to  be  war.  I'm  willing  to  divide  creation 
with  England,  but  two's  company  and  three's 
a  crowd,  and  the  Russian  Bear  must  keep 
his  paws  off.  I  will  go  to  Italy,  Bourrienne, 
collect  a  few  more  thrones,  and  then  we'll 
get  to  work  on  a  new  map  of  Europe.  Rus 
sia  never  did  look  well  or  graceful  on  the 
existing  maps.  It  makes  the  continent  look 
lop-sided,  and  Germany  and  Austria  need 
trimming  down  a  bit.  I  propose  to  shove 
Russia  over  into  Asia,  annex  Germany  and 
Austria  to  France,  drop  Turkey  into  the 
Bosporus,  and  tow  England  farther  north  and 
hitch  her  on  to  the  north  pole.  Wire  the 
Italians  to  get  out  their  iron  crown  and  dust 
it  off.  I'll  take  a  run  down  to  Milan,  in 
May,  and  give  my  coronation  performance 
there.  Such  a  good  show  as  that  of  De- 


THE   RISE   OF   THE   EMPIRE  177 

cember  2nd  ought  to  be  taken  on  the 
road." 

The  latter  part  of  this  plan  was  fulfilled 
to  the  letter,  and  on  the  20th  of  May,  1805, 
Bonaparte  and  Josephine  were  crowned 
King  and  Queen  of  Italy  at  Milan. 

"  Now,  my  dear,"  said  Bonaparte,  after  the 
ceremony,  "  hereafter  we  must  drop  the  first 
person  singular  I  and  assume  the  dignity  of 
the  editorial  WE.  Emperors  and  editors 
alike  are  entitled  to  the  distinction.  It's  a 
sign  of  plurality  which  is  often  quite  as  effec 
tive  as  a  majority.  Furthermore,  you  and 
We  can  do  it  logically,  for  we  are  several  per 
sons  all  at  once,  what  with  the  assortment  of 
thrones  that  we  have  acquired  in  the  sec 
ond-hand  shops  of  the  earth,  all  of  which 
must  be  sat  on." 

Crowned  King  of  Italy,  leaving  Eugene 
de  Beauharnais  as  Viceroy  at  Milan,  Napo 
leon  returned  to  Paris. 

"  Now  that  We  have  replenished  our  stock 


1 78  MR.  BONAPARTE   OF   CORSICA 

of  crowns,"  he  said  to  his  generals,  "  We  will 
make  a  tour  of  Germany.  We've  always  had 
a  great  desire  to  visit  Berlin,  and  now's  our 
imperial  chance.  Tell  the  arch  -  treasurer 
to  telephone  Frederick  to  reserve  his  best 
palace  for  our  occupancy." 

Then  began  a  series  of  war-clouds  which 
kept  the  European  correspondents  of  the 
American  Sunday  newspapers  in  a  state  of 
anxious  turmoil  for  years.  In  our  own  time 
a  single  war-cloud  is  enough  to  drive  a  capa 
ble  correspondent  to  the  verge  of  despera 
tion,  but  when  we  consider  that  Bonaparte 
was  letting  loose  the  clouds  of  war  in  all 
sections  of  Europe  simultaneously,  it  is  easy 
to  understand  how  it  has  come  about  that 
we  of  to-day,  who  study  history  in  the  daily 
press,  have  the  most  vague  ideas  as  to  the 
motives  of  the  quarrelling  potentates  at  the 
beginning  of  this  century. 

For  instance,  after  starting  for  Berlin, 
Bonaparte  makes  a  diversion  at  Ulm,  and 


THE   RISE  OF   THE   EMPIRE  179 

ends  for  the  moment  by  capturing  Vienna 
and  taking  up  his  abode  in  the  castle  of 
Schonbrunn,  the  home  of  the  Austrian 
Cassars.  Then  the  scene  of  activity  is  trans 
ferred  to  Cape  Trafalgar,  where  Nelson  routs 
the  French  fleet,  and  Bonaparte  is  for  an  in 
stant  discomfited,  but  above  which  he  rises 
superior. 

"  If  We  had  been  there  ourself  We'd  have 
felt  worse  about  it,"  he  said.  "  But  We  were 
not,  and  therefore  it  is  none  of  our  funeral 
— and,  after  all,  what  has  it  accomplished  ? 
The  board  of  aldermen  of  London  have 
named  a  square  in  London  after  the  cape, 
and  stuck  up  a  monument  to  Nelson  in  the 
middle  of  it,  which  is  the  rendezvous  of  all 
the  strikers  and  socialists  of  England.  Some 
day  We'll  go  over  to  Trafalgar  Square  our 
self  and  put  a  new  face  on  that  statue,  and 
it  will  bear  some  resemblance  to  us,  unless 
We  are  mistaken.  When  We  get  back  to 
Paris,  likewise,  We  will  issue  an  imperial 


l8o  MR.  BONAPARTE   OF   CORSICA 

decree  ordering  a  new  navy  for  these  capable 
admirals  of  ours  more  suited  to  their  abili 
ties,  and  M.  Villeneuve  shall  have  his  choice 
between  a  camel  and  a  gravy-boat  for  his 
flag-ship." 

Nevertheless,  the  Emperor  realized  that 
his  prestige  had  received  a  blow  which  it 
was  necessary  to  retrieve. 

"Paris  doesn't  like  it,"  wrote  Fouche, 
"and  the  general  sentiment  seems  to  be 
that  your  show  isn't  what  it  used  to  be. 
You  need  a  victory  just  about  now,  and  if 
you  could  manage  to  lose  a  leg  on  the  field 
of  battle  it  would  strengthen  your  standing 
with  your  subjects." 

"Good  Fouche,"  murmured  the  Emperor 
to  himself,  as  he  read  the  despatch.  "  You 
are  indeed  watchful  of  our  interests.  It 
shall  be  done  as  you  suggest,  even  if  it  costs 
a  leg.  We  will  engage  the  Russians  at  Aus- 
terlitz." 

On  the  2d  of  December  this  battle  of  the 


MUKAT  MA13K  A   FLYIMG   VVEUGE   WITH   OUK  CENTKE-KUSH  " 


182  MR.  BONAPARTE   OF   CORSICA 

Emperors  was  fought,  and  resulted  in  a  most 
glorious  victory  for  the  French  arms. 

"  We  scored  seven  touch-downs  in  the  first 
five  minutes,  and  at  the  end  of  the  first  half 
were  ten  goals  to  the  good,"  said  Bonaparte, 
writing  home  to  Josephine,  "  and  all  without 
my  touching  the  ball.  The  Emperor  of  Ger 
many  and  the  excessively  smart  Alexander 
of  Russia  sat  on  dead-head  hill  and  watched 
the  game  with  interest,  but  in  spite  of  my 
repeated  efforts  to  get  them  to  do  so,  were 
utterly  unwilling  to  cover  my  bets  on  the 
final  result.  The  second  half  opened  brill 
iantly.  Murat  made  a  flying  wedge  with 
our  centre-rush,  threw  himself  impetuous 
ly  upon  Kutusoff,  the  Russian  half-back, 
pushed  the  enemy  back  beyond  the  goal 
posts,  and  the  game  was  practically  over. 
The  emperors  on  dead-head  hill  gave  it  up 
then  and  there,  and  the  championship  of 
1805  is  ours.  We  understand  England  dis 
putes  this,  but  we  are  willing  to  play  them 


THE   RISE   OF   THE   EMPIRE  183 

on  neutral  ground  at  any  time.  They  can 
beat  us  in  aquatic  sports,  but  given  a  good, 
hard,  real-estate  field,  we  can  do  them  up 
whether  Wellington  plays  or  not." 

"  It  was  a  glorious  victory,"  wrote  Fouche 
to  the  Emperor,  "  and  it  has  had  a  great 
effect  on  Paris.  You  are  called  the  Hinkey 
of  your  time,  but  I  still  think  you  erred  in 
not  losing  that  leg.  Can't  you  work  in  an 
other  coronation  somewhere?  You  haven't 
acquired  a  new  throne  in  over  six  months, 
and  the  people  are  beginning  to  mur 
mur." 

Bonaparte's  reply  was  immediate. 

"  Am  too  busy  to  go  throne  -  hunting. 
Send  my  brother  Joseph  down  to  Naples 
as  my  agent.  There's  a  crown  there.  Let 
him  put  it  on,  and  tell  Paris  that  he  is  my 
proxy.  Joseph  may  not  want  to  go  because 
of  the  cholera  scare,  but  tell  him  We  wish  it, 
and  if  he  still  demurs  whisper  the  word 
'  Alp '  in  his  ear.  He'll  go  when  he  hears 


184  MR.  BONAPARTE   OF   CORSICA 

that  word,  particularly  if  you  say  it  in  that 
short,  sharp,  and  decisive  manner  to  which 
it  so  readily  lends  itself." 

These  instructions  were  carried  out,  and 
Paris  was  for  the  time  being  satisfied  ;  but 
to  clinch  matters,  as  it  were,  the  Emperor 
went  still  further,  and  married  Eugene  de 
Beauharnais  to  the  daughter  of  the  King  of 
Bavaria,  conferred  a  few  choice  principalities 
upon  his  sister  Eliza,  and,  sending  for  Prince 
Borghese,  one  of  the  most  aristocratic  gen 
tlemen  of  Italy,  gave  him  in  marriage  to  his 
sister  Pauline. 

"  We're  getting  into  good  society  by  de 
grees,"  wrote  the  Emperor  to  the  Empress, 
"  and  now  that  you  are  the  mother-in-law  of 
a  real  prince,  kindly  see  that  your  manner  is 
imperious  to  the  extreme  degree,  and  stop 
serving  pie  at  state  banquets." 

The  succeeding  two  years  were  but  repe 
titions  of  the  first  year  of  the  Empire.  Bona 
parte  proceeded  from  one  victory  to  another. 


THE    RISE   OF    THE    EMPIRE  185 

Prussia  was  humbled.  The  French  Em 
peror  occupied  Berlin,  and,  as  he  had  done 
in  Italy,  levied  upon  the  art  treasures  of  that 
city  for  the  enrichment  of  Paris. 

"  We'll  have  quite  a  Salon  if  we  go  on," 
said  Bonaparte. 

"  Anybody'd  think  you  were  getting  up  a 
corner  in  oil,"  said  Frederick,  ruefully,  as  he 
watched  the  packers  at  work  boxing  his  most 
treasured  paintings  for  shipment. 

"  We  am  getting  up  a  corner  in  all  things," 
retorted  Bonaparte.  "  Paris  will  soon  be 
the  Boston  of  Europe — it  will  be  the  Hub  of 
the  Universe." 

"You  might  leave  me  something,"  said 
the  Prussian  king.  "  I  haven't  an  old  master 
left." 

"Well,  never  mind,"  said  Napoleon,  sooth 
ingly.  "  We'll  be  a  young  master  to  you. 
Now  go  to  bed,  like  a  good  fellow,  and  take 
a  good  rest.  There's  a  delegation  of  Poles 
waiting  for  me  outside.  They  think  We 


am  going  to  erect  a  telegraph  system  to 
Russia,  and  they  want  employment." 

"  As  operators  ?"  asked  Frederick,  sadly. 

"  No,  stupid,"  returned  Napoleon,  "  as 
Poles." 

The  Prussian  left  the  room  in  tears. 

To  his  great  regret  policy  compelled  Bona 
parte  to  decline  the  petition  of  the  Polanders 
to  be  allowed  to  rehabilitate  themselves  as 
a  nation.  As  we  have  seen,  he  was  a  man 


THE    RISE   OF    THE    EMPIRE  187 

of  peace,  and  many  miles  away  from  home 
at  that,  and  hence  had  no  desire  to  further 
exasperate  Russia  by  meddling  in  an  affair 
so  close  to  the  Czar's  heart.  This  diplo 
matic  foresight  resulted  in  the  Peace  of  Til 
sit.  The  Czar,  appreciating  Bonaparte's 
delicacy  in  the  matter  of  Poland,  was  quite 
won  over,  and  consented  to  an  interview  by 
means  of  which  a  basis  might  be  reached 
upon  which  all  might  rest  from  warfare. 
Tilsit  was  chosen  as  the  place  of  meeting, 
and  fearing  lest  they  might  be  interrupted 
by  reporters,  the  two  emperors  decided  to 
hold  their  conference  upon  a  raft  anchored 
in  the  middle  of  the  river  Niemen.  It  must 
be  remembered  that  tugs  had  not  been  in 
vented  at  this  time,  so  that  the  raft  was 
comparatively  safe  from  those  "  Boswells  of 
the  news,"  as  reporters  have  been  called. 
Fouche  was  very  anxious  about  this  decision 
however. 

"  Look  out  for  yourself,  my  dear  Emper- 


i88 


MR.  BONAPARTE   OF   CORSICA 


or,"  he  wrote.  "  Wear  a  cork  suit,  or  insist 
that  the  raft  shall  be  plentifully  supplied 
with  life-preservers.  Those  Eastern  em 
perors  would  like  nothing  better  than  to 
have  you  founder  in  the  Niemen." 

"  We  are  not  afraid,"  Napoleon  replied. 


i:irv 


THE  HA?rY  FAMILY 

UNTIL 

r  FURTHER    NOTICL  ' 

WILLIAM  HI  "t^l"^'-«r 


THE   RISE   OF   THE    EMPIRE  189 

"  If  the  craft  sinks  We  shall  swim  ashore  on 
Alexander's  back."  Nevertheless,  all  other 
historians  to  the  contrary,  Bonaparte  did 
wear  a  cork  suit  beneath  his  uniform.  We 
have  this  on  the  authority  of  the  nephew 
of  the  valet  of  the  late  Napoleon  III.,  who 
had  access  to  the  private  papers  of  this 
wonderful  family. 

Nothing  disastrous  occurred  upon  this 
occasion  in  spite  of  the  temptation  thrown 
in  Alexander's  way  to  sink  the  raft  and 
thus  rid  the  world  of  a  dangerous  rival  to 
his  supremacy.  The  conference  resulted  in 
a  treaty  of  peace,  concluded  on  the  yth  of 
July,  1807,  and  by  it  a  few  more  thrones 
were  added  to  the  Bonaparte  collection. 
Jerome,  who  had  been  trying  to  make  a  liv 
ing  as  a  music  teacher  in  America,  having 
been  divorced  from  his  American  wife  and 
married  to  another,  was  made  King  of 
Westphalia. 

"  Having  made  a  failure  in  the  West,  my 


1 9o 


MR.   BONAPARTE   OF   CORSICA 


dear  brother,"  said  Bonaparte,  "  what  could 
be  more  appropriate  ?" 

Louis  was  made  King  of  Holland,  and 
Joseph's  kingship  of  Naples  was  fully  rec 
ognized,  and,  further,  Bonaparte  was  enabled 
to  return  to  Paris  and  show  himself  to  the 
citizens  of  that  fickle  city,  who  were  getting 
restive  under  Josephine's  rule. 

"  They  like  Josephine  well  enough,"  wrote 
Fouche,  "  but  the  men  prefer  to  have  you 
here.  The  fact  that  things  run  smoothly 
under  a  woman's  rule  is  giving  the  female 


THE   RISE    OF   THE    EMPIRE  191 

suffragists  a  great  boom,  and  the  men  say 
that  domestic  life  is  being  ruined.  Cooks 
are  scarce,  having  deserted  the  kitchen  for 
the  primaries,  and  altogether  the  outlook 
is  effeminate.  Therefore,  come  back  as  soon 
as  you  can,  for  if  you  don't  the  first  thing 
we  know  the  women  will  be  voting,  and 
you'll  find  you'll  have  to  give  up  your  seat 
to  a  lady." 

The  Emperor's  return  to  Paris  was  marked 
by  great  rejoicing,  particularly  by  the  large 
number  of  hatters  and  laundresses  and  sta 
ble-boys  whom  he  had  in  the  meantime  paid 
for  their  early  services  by  making  them 
dukes  and  duchesses.  The  court  was  mag 
nificent,  and  entirely  new.  No  second-hand 
nobles  were  allowed  within  the  sacred  circle, 
and  the  result  was  one  of  extreme  splendor. 
In  a  small  way,  to  maintain  the  interest 
which  he  had  inspired,  as  well  as  to  keep 
up  the  discipline  of  his  army,  a  few  con 
quests,  including  those  of  Spain  and  Portu- 


192  MR.  BONAPARTE  OF   CORSICA 

gal,  were  indulged  in.  Joseph  was  removed 
from  a  comfortable,  warm  throne  at  Naples 
and  made  King  of  Spain,  and  Murat  was 
substituted  for  him  at  Naples.  The  Emper 
or's  elder  brother  did  not  like  the  change,  but 
submitted  as  gracefully  as  ever. 

"  Naples  was  extremely  comfortable,"  he 
said,  "but  this  Madrid  position  is  not  at  all 
to  my  taste.  I  prefer  macaroni  to  garlic,  and 
I  cannot  endure  these  Carmencita  dances— 
they  remind  me  too  much  of  the  green- apple 
season  in  the  old  Corsican  days.  However, 
what  my  brother  wills  I  do,  merely  from 
force  of  habit — not  that  I  fear  him  or  con 
sider  myself  bound  to  obey  him,  mind  you, 
but  because  I  am  averse  to  family  differ 
ences.  One  must  yield,  and  I  have  always 
been  the  self-sacrificing  member  of  the  fam 
ily.  He's  put  me  here,  and  I  hope  to  re 
main." 

This  promotion  of  Joseph  was  a  misstep 
for  one  who  desired  peace,  and  Bonaparte 


'HATTERS  AND  LAUNDRESSES  WHOM  HE   HAD  MADE  DUKES 
AND  DUCHESSES  " 


194  MR.   BONAPARTE   OF   CORSICA 

soon  found  another  war  with  Austria  on  the 
tapis  because  of  it.  Emperor  Francis  Jo 
seph,  jealous  perhaps  of  the  copyright  on 
his  name,  declined  to  recognize  King  Jo 
seph  of  Spain.  Whereupon  Bonaparte  again 
set  out  for  Austria,  where,  on  the  6th  of  July, 
1809,  Austria  having  recognized  the  strength 
of  Bonaparte's  arguments,  backed  up,  as 
they  were,  by  an  overwhelming  force  of 
men,  each  worthy  of  a  marshal's  baton, 
and  all  confident,  under  the  new  regime, 
of  some  day  securing  it,  an  armistice 
was  agreed  upon,  and  on  the  i4th  of  Oc 
tober  a  treaty  satisfactory  to  France  was 
signed. 

"  If  I  have  to  come  back  again,  my  dear 
Emperor  Joseph,"  Bonaparte  said,  as  he  set 
out  for  Paris,  "  it  will  be  for  the  purpose 
of  giving  you  a  new  position,  which  you 
may  not  like  so  well  as  the  neat  and  rather 
gaudy  sinecure  you  now  hold." 

"  Which  is—  ?"  added  the  Austrian. 


THE   RISE  OF   THE    EMPIRE  195 

"  I'll  bring  you  a  snow-shovel  and  set  you 
to  clearing  off  the  steps." 

"  What  steps  ?"  queried  the  Austrian 
anxiously. 

"The  back -steppes  of  Russia,"  replied 
Napoleon,  sternly.  "  The  only  thing  that 
keeps  me  from  doing  it  now  is  that  I — ah — I 
hate  to  do  anything  unkind  to  the  father  of — 
ah — your  daughter  Marie -Louise,  whom  I 
met  at  the  dance  last  night,  and  who,  be 
tween  you  and  me,  looks  remarkably  like 
the  only  woman  I  ever  loved." 


THE   FALL   OF   THE   EMPIRE 
1810-1814 

UST  before  the  opening  of  the  year  1810, 
which  marked  the  beginning  of  Bona 
parte's  decay,  Fouche  demanded  an  audi 
ence. 

"Well,    Fouche',"   said    the    Emperor, 
"  what  now  ?" 

"This  Empire  can't  go  much  further, 
Your  Majesty,  unless  more  novelty  is  in 
troduced.  I've  had  my  men  out  all  through 
France  taking  notes,  and  there's  but  one 
opinion  among  'em  all.  You've  got  to  do 


something  new  or  stop  the  show. 
If  you'd  only  done  what  I  suggested 
at  Austerlitz.  and  lost  a  leg,  it  would 
have  been  different.  The  people 
don't  ask  much  song-and-dance  busi 
ness  from  a  one-legged  man." 

"We  compromised  with  you  there," 
retorted  Napoleon.  "At  Ratisbon 
our  imperial  foot  was  laid  up  for  a 
week." 

"  Yes— but  you  didn't  lose  it,"  re 
turned  Fouche.  "  Can't  you  see  the 
difference?  If  you'd  lost  it,  and 
come  home  without  it,  there'd  have 
been  evidence  of  your  suffering.  As 
it  is,  do  you  know  what  your  enemies 
are  saying  about  your  foot  ?" 


"We  do  not,"  said  the  Emperor, 
sternly.  "  What  do  they  say  ?" 

"  Well,  the  Bourbons  say  you  stepped 
on  it  running  away  from  the  enemy's 
guns,  and  the  extreme  Republicans  say 
your  wound  is  nothing  but  gout  and 
the  result  of  high,  undemocratic  living. 
Now,  my  dear  sir — Sire,  I  mean — I  take 
a  great  deal  of  interest  in  this  Empire. 
It  pays  me  my  salary,  and  I've  had 
charge  of  the  calcium  lights  for  some 
time,  and  I  don't  want  our  lustre 
dimmed,  but  it  will  be  dimmed  unless, 
as  I  have  already  told  you  a  million 
times,  we  introduce  some  new  act  on 
our  programme.  1492  didn't  succeed 
on  its  music,  or  its  jokes,  or  its  living 


THE    FALL   OF   THE   EMPIRE  199 

pictures.  It  was  the  introduction  of  novel 
ties  every  week  that  kept  it  on  the  boards 
for  four  hundred  years." 

"  Well — what  do  you  propose  ?"  asked  Bo 
naparte,  recognizing  the  truth  of  Fouche"  s 
words. 

"  I — ah — I  think  you  ought  to  get  mar 
ried,"  said  Fouche. 

"  We  am  married,  you — you — idiot,"  cried 
Bonaparte. 

"  Well,  marry  again,"  said  Fouche. 
"You've  been  giving  other  people  away  at 
a  great  rate  for  several  years  —  what's  the 
matter  with  acquiring  a  real  princess  for 
yourself?" 

"  You  advise  bigamy,  do  you  ?"  asked  Bo 
naparte,  scornfully. 

"  Not  on  your  life,"  returned  Fouche, 
"  but  a  real  elegant  divorce,  followed  by  an 
imperial  wedding,  would  rattle  the  bones  of 
this  blase  old  Paris  as  they  haven't  been  rat 
tled  since  Robespierre's  day." 


200  MR.  BONAPARTE   OF   CORSICA 

Bonaparte  reddened,  then,  rising  from  the 
throne  and  putting  his  hand  to  the  side  of 
his  mouth,  he  said,  in  a  low,  agitated  tone : 

"  Close  the  door,  Fouche.  Close  the  door 
and  come  here.  We  want  to  whisper  some 
thing  to  you." 

The  minister  did  as  he  was  bidden. 

"  Fouche,  old  boy,"  chuckled  the  Emper 
or  in  the  ear  of  his  rascally  aide — "  Fouche, 
you're  a  mind-reader.  We've  been  thinking 
of  just  that  very  thing  for  some  time — in  fact, 
ever  since  We  met  that  old  woman  Emperor 
Francis  Joseph.  He'd  make  an  elegant 
mother-in-law." 

"  Precisely,"  said  Fouche'.  "  His  daugh 
ter  Marie  -  Louise,  an  archduchess  by  birth, 
is  the  one  I  had  selected  for  you.  History 
will  no  doubt  say  that  I  oppose  this  match, 
and  publicly  perhaps  I  may  seem  to  do  so, 
but  you  will  understand,  my  dear  Sire,  that 
this  opposition  will  serve,  as  it  is  designed  to 
serve,  as  an  advertisement  of  our  enterprise, 


202  MR.  BONAPARTE   OF   CORSICA 

and  without  advertising  we  might  as  well  put 
up  the  shutters.  Shall  we — ah — announce 
the  attraction  to  the  public?" 

"  Not  yet,"  said  Napoleon.  "  We  must 
get  rid  of  our  leading  lady  before  we  bring 
on  the  understudy." 

It  is  a  sad  chapter  in  the  history  of  this 
eminent  man  wherein  is  told  the  heart-break 
ing  story  of  his  sacrifice  —  the  giving  up 
through  sheer  love  of  his  country  of  the  only 
woman  he  had  ever  loved,  and  we  should 
prefer  to  pass  it  over  in  silence.  We  allude 
to  it  here  merely  to  show  that  it  was  brought 
about  by  the  exigencies  of  his  office,  and 
that  it  was  nothing  short  of  heroic  self-abne 
gation  which  led  this  faithful  lover  of  his 
adopted  native  land  to  put  the  beautiful  Jo 
sephine  away  from  him.  He  had  builded 
an  Empire  for  an  opera  bouffe  people,  and 
he  was  resolved  to  maintain  it  at  any  cost. 

In  March,  1810,  Bonaparte,  having  in  his 
anxiety  to  spare  the  feelings  of  the  divorced 


A   FEW  OF  THE  «NLY  WOMEN   HE  EVER  LOVED 


204  MR-  BONAPARTE  OF   CORSICA 

Josephine,  wooed  Marie-Louise  by  proxy  in 
the  person  of  Marshal  Berthier,  met  his  new 
fiancte  at  Soissons. 

"  It  is  three  months  since  we  lost  our  be 
loved  Josephine,"  he  said  to  Fouche,  with 
tears  in  his  voice,  "  but  the  wound  is  begin 
ning  to  heal.  We  fear  we  shall  never  love 
again,  but  for  the  sake  of  the  Empire  we  will 
now  begin  to  take  notice  once  more.  We 
will  meet  our  bride-elect  at  Soissons,  and  es 
cort  her  to  Paris  ourself." 

This  was  done,  and  on  the  2nd  of  April, 
1810,  Marie  -  Louise  became  Empress  of 
France.  Josephine,  meanwhile,  had  retired 
to  Malmaison  with  alimony  of  3,000,000 
francs. 

Fouche  was  delighted ;  Paris  was  provided 
with  conversation  enough  for  a  year  in  any 
event,  and  Bonaparte  found  it  possible  to  re 
lax  a  little  in  his  efforts  to  inspire  interest. 
His  main  anxiety  in  the  ensuing  year  was  as 
to  his  family  affairs.  His  brothers  did  not 


THE   FALL   OF   THE   EMPIRE 


205 


turn  out  so  highly  successful  as  professional 
kings  as  he  had  hoped,  and  it  became  nec 
essary  to  depose  Louis  the  King  of  Holland 
and  place  him  under  arrest.  Joseph,  too, 
desired  to  resign  the  Spanish  throne,  which 
he  had  found  to  be  far  from  comfortable, 
and  there  was  much  else  to  restore  Bona 
parte's  early  proneness  to  irritability;  nor 
was  his  lot  rendered  any  more  happy  by 
Marie-Louise's  expressed  determination  not 
to  go  to  tea  with  Josephine  at  Malmaison 
on  Sunday  nights,  as  the  Emperor  wished 
her  to  do. 


206  MR.  BONAPARTE   OF   CORSICA 

"You  may  go  if  you  please," 
said  she,  "  but  I  shall  not.     Fam 
ily  reunions  are  never  agreeable, 
and  the  circumstances  of  this  are 
so  peculiar   that  even   if  they 
had   redeeming  features   this 
one  would  be  impossible." 

"We  call  that  rebellion — don't 
you?"  asked  Bonaparte  of  Fouche. 
"No,"  said  Fouche'.  "She's 
right,  and  it's  for  your  good.  If 
she  and  Josephine  got  chumming 
and  compared  notes,  I'm  rather 
of  the  opinion  that  there'd  be 
another  divorce." 

Fouche"  s  reply  so  enraged  the 
Emperor  that  he  dismissed  him  from  his 
post,  and  the  Empire  began  to  fall. 

"  I  leave  you  at  your  zenith,  Sire,"  said 
Fouche.  "  You  send  me  to  Rome  as  gov 
ernor  in  the  hope  that  I  will  get  the  Roman 
fever  and  die.  I  know  it  well ;  but  let  me 


THE    FALL   OF   THE   EMPIRE  207 

tell  you  that  the  reaction  is  nearly  due,  and 
with  the  loss  of  your  stage  manager  the 
farce  begins  to  pall.  Farewell.  If  you  can 
hook  yourself  on  to  your  zenith  and  stay 
there,  do  so,  but  that  you  will  I  don't  think." 

It  was  as  Fouche  said.  Perplexities  now 
arose  which  bade  fair  to  overwhelm  the  Em 
peror.  For  a  moment  they  cleared  away 
when  the  infant  son  of  Marie-Louise  and 
Bonaparte  was  born,  but  they  broke  out 
with  increasing  embarrassment  immediately 
after. 

"What  has  your  son-in-law  named  his 
boy,  Francis  Joseph  ?"  asked  Alexander  of 
Russia. 

"  King  of  Rome,"  returned  the  Austrian. 

"What!"  cried  Alexander,  "and  not  after 
you — or  me  ?  The  coxcomb  !  I  will  make 
war  upon  him." 

This  anecdote  is  here  given  to  the  world 
for  the  first  time.  It  is  generally  supposed 
that  the  rupture  of  friendly  relations  be- 


208  MR.  BONAPARTE  OF   CORSICA 

tween  Alexander  and  Bonaparte  grew  out  of 
other  causes,  but  the  truth  is  as  indicated  in 
this  story.  Had  Fouche  been  at  hand, 
Bonaparte  would  never  have  made  the  mis 
take,  but  it  was  made,  and  war  was  declared. 

After  a  succession  of  hard-fought  battles 
the  invading  army  of  the  Emperor  entered 
Moscow,  but  Napoleon's  spirit  was  broken. 

"  These  Russian  names  are  giving  us 
paresis  !"  he  cried.  "  How  I  ever  got  here 
I  don't  know,  and  I  find  myself  unprovided 
with  a  return  ticket.  The  names  of  the  Rus 
sian  generals,  to  say  nothing  of  those  of  their 
rivers  and  cities,  make  my  head  ache,  and 
have  ruined  my  teeth.  I  fear,  Davoust,  that 
I  have  had  my  day.  It  was  easy  to  call  on 
the  Pollylukes  to  surrender  in  Africa;  it 
never  unduly  taxed  my  powers  of  enuncia 
tion  to  speak  the  honeyed  names  of  Italy ; 
the  Austrian  tongue  never  bothered  me  ;  but 
when  I  try  to  inspire  my  soldiers  with  re 
marks  like,  '  On  to  Smolensko !'  or  *  Down 


THE    FALL   OF   THE   EMPIRE  209 

with  Rostopchin !'  and  *  Shall  we  be  dis 
couraged  because  Tchigagoff,  and  Kutusoff, 
and  Carrymeoffski,of  theUpperjnavyk  Cgold 
Sdream  Cards,  oppose  us  ?'  I  want  to  lie 
down  and  die.  What  is  the  sense  of  these 
barbed-wire  names,  anyhow?  Why,  when  I 
was  told  that  Barclay  de  Tolly  had  aban 
doned  Vitepsk,  and  was  marching  on  Smo- 
lensko  with  a  fair  chance  of  uniting  with 
Tormagoff  and  Wittgenstein,  I  was  so  mixed 
that  I  couldn't  tell  whether  Vitepsk  was  a 
brigadier -general  or  a  Russian  summer- 
resort.  Nevertheless,  we  have  arrived,  and 
I  think  we  can  pass  a  comfortable  winter  in 
Moscow.  Is  Moscow  a  cold  place,  do  you 
know?" 

Marshal  Ney  looked  out  of  the  window. 

"No,  Your  Majesty,"  he  said;  "I  judge 
from  appearances  that  it's  the  hottest  place 
in  creation,  just  now.  Look  !" 

Bonaparte's  heart  sank  within  him.  He 
looked  and  saw  the  city  in  flames. 


210  MR.  BONAPARTE  OF   CORSICA 

"Well,"  he  cried,  "why  don't  you  do 
something?  What  kind  of  theatrical  sol 
diers  are  you?  Ring  up  the  fire  depart 
ment  !  Ah,  Fouche,  Fouche,  if  you  were 
only  here  now !  You  could  at  least  arrest 
the  flames." 

It  was  too  late.  Nothing  could  be  done, 
and  the  conquering  hero  of  nearly  twenty 
years  now  experienced  the  bitterness  of  de 
feat.  Rushing  through  the  blazing  town,  he 
ordered  a  retreat,  and  was  soon  sadly  wend 
ing  his  way  back  to  Paris. 

"We  are  afraid,"  he  murmured,  "  that  that 
Moscow  fire  has  cooked  our  imperial  goose." 

Then,  finding  the  progress  of  the  army  too 
slow,  and  anxious  to  hear  the  news  of  Paris, 
Napoleon  left  his  troops  under  the  command 
of  Ney  and  pushed  rapidly  on,  travelling  in 
cognito,  not  being  desirous  of  accepting  such 
receptions  and  fetes  in  his  honor  as  the  en 
emy  had  in  store  for  him. 

"  I  do  not  like  to  leave  my  army  in  such 


THE   RETREAT  FROM  MOSCOW 


212  MR.  BONAPARTE  OF  CORSICA 

sore  straits,"  he  said,  "but  I  must.  I  am 
needed  at  the  Tuileries.  The  King  of  Rome 
has  fallen  in  love  with  his  nurse,  and  I  un 
derstand  also  that  there  is  a  conspiracy  to 
steal  the  throne  and  sell  it.  This  must  not 
be.  Reassure  the  army  of  my  love.  Tell 
them  that  they  are,  as  was  the  army  of 
Egypt,  my  children,  and  that  they  may  play 
out  in  the  snow  a  little  while  longer,  but 
must  come  in  before  they  catch  cold." 

With  these  words  he  was  off.  Paris,  as 
usual,  received  him  with  open  arms.  Things 
had  been  dull  during  his  absence,  and  his 
return  meant  excitement.  The  total  loss  of 
the  French  in  this  campaign  was  450,000 
men,  nearly  a  thousand  cannon,  and  seventy- 
five  eagles  and  standards. 

"It's  a  heavy  loss,"  said  the  Emperor, 
"but  it  took  a  snow-storm  to  do  it.  I'd 
rather  fight  bears  than  blizzards ;  but  the 
French  must  not  be  discouraged.  Let  them 
join  the  army.  The  Russians  have  captured 


THE   FALL   OF   THE    EMPIRE  213 

three  thousand  and  forty-eight  officers  whose 
places  must  be  filled.  If  that  isn't  encour 
agement  to  join  the  army  I  expect  to  raise 
next  spring  I  don't  know  what  is.  As  for 
the  eagles — you  can  get  gold  eagles  in  Amer 
ica  for  ten  dollars  apiece,  so  why  repine! 
On  with  the  dance,  let  joy  be  unconfined !" 

It  was  too  late,  however.  The  Empire 
had  palled.  Bonaparte  could  have  started  a 
comic  paper  and  still  have  failed  to  rouse 
Paris  from  its  lethargy,  and  Paris  is  the 
heart  of  France.  Storms  gathered,  war- 
clouds  multiplied,  the  nations  of  the  earth 
united  against  him,  the  King  of  Rome  be 
gan  cutting  his  teeth  and  destroyed  the  Em 
peror's  rest.  The  foot -ball  of  fate  that 
chance  had  kicked  so  high  came  down  to 
earth  with  a  sickening  thud,  and  Mr.  Bona 
parte  of  Corsica  yielded  to  the  inevitable. 

"  Fouche,"  he  said,  sending  for  the  exiled 
minister  in  his  extremity,  "  when  I  lost  you 
I  lost  my  leading  man — the  star  of  my  enter- 


214  MR.  BONAPARTE  OF   CORSICA 

prise.  During  your  absence  the  prompter's 
box  has  been  empty,  and  I  don't  know  what 
to  do.  The  world  is  against  me  —  even 
France.  I  see  but  one  thing  left.  Do  you 
think  I  could  restore  confidence  by  divorc 
ing  Marie-Louise  and  remarrying  Josephine  ? 
It  strikes  me  that  an  annual  shaking-up  of 
that  nature  would  sort  of  liven  matters  up." 
"No!"  said  Fouche',  "it  won't  do. 
They've  had  one  divorce.  You  mustn't  re 
peat  yourself  now.  You  forget  the  thing 
I've  always  tried  to  impress  upon  you.  Be 
New;  not  parvenu  or  ingenue,  but  plain  up 
and  down  New  is  what  you  need  to  be.  It 
would  have  been  just  the  same  if  you'd 
thrashed  Russia.  They'd  have  forced  you  to 
go  on  and  conquer  China;  then  they'd  have 
demanded  a  war  with  Japan,  after  which 
they'd  have  dethroned  you  if  you  didn't  annex 
the  Sandwich  Islands  to  the  United  States, 
and  then  bag  the  whole  thing  for  France. 
This  is  what  you  get  for  wanting  to  rule  the 


THE    FALL   OF  THE   EMPIRE  21$ 

French  people.  You  can't  keep  quiet  — 
you've  got  to  have  a  move  on  you  constantly 
or  they  won't  have  you.  Furthermore,  you 
mustn't  make  'em  laugh  except  at  the  other 
man.  You've  had  luck  in  that  respect,  but 
there's  no  telling  how  long  it  will  continue 
now  that  you  have  a  son.  He's  beginning 
to  say  funny  things,  and  they're  generally  at 
your  expense,  and  one  or  two  people  here 
abouts  have  snickered  at  you  already." 

"  What  do  you  mean  ?"  said  Napoleon, 
with  a  frown.  "  What  has  the  boy  said 
about  me  ?" 

"  He  told  the  Minister  of  Finance  the 
other  night  that  now  that  you  were  the  fa 
ther  of  a  real  Emperor's  grandson,  you  had 
a  valid  claim  to  respectability,  and  he'd  bite 
the  head  off  the  first  person  who  said  you 
hadn't,"  said  Fouche. 

"Well  —  that  certainly  was  standing  up 
for  his  daddy,"  said  the  Emperor,  fondly. 

"  Ye-e-es,"  said  Fouche,  "  but  it's  one  of 


2l6  MR.   BONAPARTE   OF   CORSICA 

those  double  back-action  remarks  that  do 
more  harm  than  good." 

"Well,"  said  Bonaparte,  desperately,  "let 
the  boy  say  what  he  pleases ;  he's  my  son, 
and  he  has  that  right.  The  thing  for  us  to 
decide  is,  what  shall  we  do  now  ?" 

"There  are  three  things  left,"  said  Fou- 
che. 

"  And  they  ?"  asked  the  Emperor. 

"  Write  Trilby,  abdicate,  or  commit  sui 
cide.  The  first  is  beyond  you.  You  know 
enough  about  Paris,  but  your  style  is  against 
you.  As  for  the  second,  abdication — if  you 
abdicate  you  may  come  back,  and  the  trou 
ble  will  begin  all  over  again.  If  you  com 
mit  suicide,  you  won't  have  any  more  rows. 
The  French  will  be  startled,  and  say  that  it's 
a  splendid  climax,  and  you  will  have  the  sat 
isfaction  of  knowing  that  some  other  man  will 
try  to  please  them  with  the  same  result." 

"It  shall  be  abdication,"  said  the  Emperor, 
with  a  sigh.  "  I  don't  mind  suicide,  but,  hang 


BONAPARTE  ABDICATED 


2l8  MR.  BONAPARTE  OF   CORSICA 

it,  Fouche',  if  I  killed  myself  I  could  not  read 
what  the  papers  said  about  it.  As  for  writ 
ing  Trilby,  it  would  do  more  for  royalty  than 
for  me.  Therefore  I  will  go  to  Fontaine- 
bleau  and  abdicate.  I  will  go  into  exile  at 
Elba.  Exiles  are  most  interesting  people, 
and  it  may  be  that  I'll  have  another  chance." 
This  course  was  taken,  and  on  the  2oth  of 
April,  1814,  Bonaparte  abdicated.  His  speech 
to  his  faithful  guard  was  one  of  the  most 
affecting  farewells  in  history,  and  had  much  to 
do  with  the  encore  which  Napoleon  received 
less  than  a  year  after.  Escorted  by  four 
commissioners,  one  from  each  of  the  great 
allied  powers,  Austria,  Russia,  England,  and 
Prussia,  and  attended  by  a  few  attached 
friends  and  servants,  Bonaparte  set  out  from 
Paris.  The  party  occupied  fourteen  car 
riages,  Bonaparte  in  the  first;  and  as  they  left 
the  capital  the  ex-Emperor,  leaning  out  of  the 
window,  looked  back  at  the  train  of  convey 
ances  and  sighed. 


THE   FALL  OF   THE   EMPIRE 


2I9 


"  What,  Sire  ?    You  sigh  ?"  cried  Bertrand. 

"  Yes,  Bertrand,  yes.  Not  for  my  departed 
glory,  but  because  I  am  a  living  Frenchman, 
and  not  a  dead  Irishman." 

"And  why  so,  Sire?"  asked  Bertrand. 

"Because,  my  friend,  of  the  carnages. 
There  are  fourteen  in  this  funeral.  Think, 
Bertrand,"  he  moaned,  in  a  tone  rendered 
doubly  impressive  by  the  fact  that  it  re 
minded  one  of  Henry  Irving  in  one  of  his 
most  mannered  moments.  "Think  how  I 
should  have  enjoyed  this  moment  had  I 
been  a  dead  Irishman  !" 


ELBA — THE   RETURN — WATERLOO — 
ST.  HELENA 

1814-1815 

ONAPARTE'S  spirits  rose  as 
the  party  proceeded.      There 
were    remarkable    evidences 
all  along  the  line  of  march   that 
his    greatness,  while   dimmed    in 
one  sense,  had  not  diminished  in 
others.     A  series  of  attacks  upon 
him  had  been  arranged,  much  to 
the  fallen  Emperor's  delight. 

"  If  you  want  to  make  a  fellow 
popular,  Bertrand,"  he   remarked 


ELBA — WATERLOO — ST.  HELENA    221 

after  one  of  them,  "kick  him  when  he's 
down.  I'll  wager  I  am  having  a  better 
time  now  than  Louis  XVIII.,  and,  after  all, 
I  regard  this  merely  as  a  vacation.  I'll  have 
a  good  rest  at  Elba  while  Louis  is  pushing 
the  button  of  government  at  Paris.  After 
a  while  I'll  come  back  and  press  the  but 
tons  and  Louis  will  do  the  rest.  There's 
some  honey  in  the  old  Bees  yet." 

At  Valence,  however,  the  Emperor  had 
a  bitter  cup  to  drain.  Meeting  Augereau 
there,  with  whom  he  had  fallen  out,  he  ad 
dressed  him  in  his  old-time  imperial  style, 
asking  him  what  right  he  had  to  still  live, 
and  requesting  him  to  stand  out  of  his  light. 
Augereau,  taking  advantage  of  the  Emper 
or's  fallen  estate,  replied  in  a  spirited  man 
ner,  calling  Napoleon  an  ex- Emperor  and  a 
tin  soldier,  as  well  as  applying  several  other 
epithets  to  his  dethroned  majesty  which 
might  be  printed  in  a  French  book,  but  can 
have  no  place  in  this. 


222  MR.  BONAPARTE   OF   CORSICA 

"  We  shall  meet  again,"  retorted  Bona 
parte,  with  a  threatening  gesture. 

"Not  if  I  see  you  first,"  replied  Auge- 
reau.  "  If  we  do,  however,  it  will  be  under 
a  new  system  of  etiquette." 

"  I'll  bet  you  a  crown  you'll  be  singing  a 
new  tune  inside  of  a  year,"  cried  the  exas 
perated  Bonaparte. 

"  I'll  go  you,"  said  Augereau,  snapping 
his  fingers.  "  Put 
up  your  crown." 

Napoleon  felt 
keenly  the  stinging 
satire  of  this  retort. 
Bowing  his  head 
with  a  groan,  he 
had  to  acknowl 
edge  that  he  had 
no  crown,  but  in  an 
instant  he  recov 
ered. 

"But   I   have    a 


ELBA— WATERLOO— ST.  HELENA     223 

Napoleon  left  in  my  clothes  !"  he  cried,  with 
a  dry  laugh  at  his  own  wit.  "  I'll  bet  it 
against  your  income  for  the  next  forty  cen 
turies,  which  is  giving  you  large  odds,  that 
I  shall  return,  and  when  I  do,  Monsieur 
Augereau,  your  name  will  be  Denis." 

The  appreciation  of  those  about  them  of 
this  sally  so  enraged  Augereau  that  he  was 
discomfited  utterly,  and  he  left  Bonaparte's 
presence  muttering  words  which  are  fortu 
nately  forgotten. 

Arrived  at  Cannes,  Bonaparte  had  his 
choice  of  vessels  upon  which  to  make  his 
voyage  to  Elba,  one  English  and  one  French. 
"I'll  take  the  English.  I  shall  not  trust 
my  life  to  a  Bourbon  ship  if  I  know  myself. 
I'd  rather  go  to  sea  in  a  bowl,"  said  he. 

Hence  it  was  that  an  English  vessel,  the 
Undaunted,  had  the  honor  of  transporting 
the  illustrious  exile  to  his  island  dominion. 
On  the  4th  of  May  he  landed,  and  immedi 
ately  made  a  survey  of  his  new  kingdom. 


224 


MR.  BONAPARTE  OF   CORSICA 


"  It  isn't  large,"  he 
observed,  as  he  made 
a  memorandum  of  its 
dimensions,  "but 
neither  is  a  canvas- 
back  duck.  I  think 
we  can  make  some 
thing  of  it,  particular 
ly  as  the  people  seem 
glad  to  see  me." 

This  was  indeed 
the  truth.  The  El- 
;£^B\  bese  were  delighted 
to  have  Bonaparte  in 
their  midst.  They  realized  that  excursion 
steamers  which  had  hitherto  passed  them 
by  would  now  come  crowded  from  main-top 
to  keel  with  persons  desirous  of  seeing  the 
illustrious  captive.  Hotel  rates  rose  200 
per  cent.,  and  on  the  first  Sunday  of  his 
stay  on  the  island  the  receipts  of  the 
Island  Museum,  as  it  was  now  called,  were 


ELBA — WATERLOO — ST.  HELENA     225 

sufficient  to  pay  its  taxes  to  the  French 
government,  which  had  been  in  arrears  for 
some  time,  ten  times  over. 

"  I  feel  like  an  ossified  man  or  a  turtle- 
boy,"  said  the  Emperor  to  Bertrand,  as  the 
curious  visitors  gaped  awe-stricken  at  the 
caged  lion.  "  If  I  only  had  a  few  pictures 
of  myself  to  sell  these  people  I  could  buy 
up  the  national  debt,  foreclose  the  mortgage, 
and  go  back  to  France  as  its  absolute  mas 
ter." 

The  popularity  of  Bonaparte  as  an  at 
traction  to  outsiders  so  endeared  him  to 
the  hearts  of  his  new  subjects  that  he  prac 
tically  had  greater  sway  here  than  he  ever 
had  in  the  palmy  days  of  the  Empire.  The 
citizens  made  him  master  of  everything, 
and  Bonaparte  filled  the  role  to  the  full. 
Provided  with  guards  and  servants,  he  sur 
rounded  himself  with  all  the  gaud  and  glit 
ter  of  a  military  despotism,  and,  in  default  of 
continents  to  capture,  he  kept  his  hand  in 


226  MR.  BONAPARTE   OF   CORSICA 

trim  as  a  commander  by  the  conquest  of 
such  small  neighboring  islands  as  nature 
had  placed  within  reach,  but  it  could 
hardly  be  expected  that  he  could  long  re 
main  tranquil.  His  eyes  soon  wearied  of 
the  circumscribed  limits  of  Elba. 

"  It's  all  very  well  to  be  monarch  of  all 
you  survey,  Bertrand,"  said  he,  mournful 
ly,  "  but  as  for  me,  give  me  some  of  the 
things  that  can't  be  seen.  I  might  as  well 
be  that  old  dried-up  fig  of  a  P.  T.  Olemy 
over  there  in  Egypt  as  Emperor  of  a  vest- 
pocket  Empire  like  this.  Isn't  there  any 
news  from  France  ?" 

"  Yes,"  returned  Bertrand,  "  Paris  is 
murmuring  again.  Louis  hasn't  stopped 
eating  yet,  and  the  French  think  it's  time 
his  dinner  was  over." 

"  Ha  !"  cried  Bonaparte  in  ecstasy.  "  I 
thought  so.  He's  too  much  of  a  revivalist 
to  suit  Paris.  Furthermore,  I'm  told  he's 
brought  out  his  shop-worn  aristocracy  to 


ELBA— WATERLOO— ST.  HELENA    227 

dazzle  France  again.  They're  all  wool  and 
a  yard  wide,  but  you  needn't  think  my  hand 
made  nobility  is  going  to  efface  itself  just 
because  the  Montmorencies  and  the  Rohans 
don't  ask  it  out  to  dine.  My  dukes  and 
duchesses  will  have  something  to  say,  I 
fancy,  and  if  my  old  laundress,  the  Duchess 
of  Dantzig,  doesn't  take  the  starch  out  of  the 
old  regime  I'll  be  mightily  mistaken." 


228  MR.  BONAPARTE   OF   CORSICA 

And  this  was  the  exact  situation.  As 
Bonaparte  said,  the  old  regime  by  their 
hauteur  so  enraged  the  new  regime  that  by 
the  new  year  of  1815  it  was  seen  by  all 
except  those  in  authority  that  the  return 
of  the  exile,  Corporal  Violet,  as  he  was  now 
called,  was  inevitable.  So  it  came  about 
that  on  the  20th  of  February,  his  pockets 
stuffed  with  impromptu  addresses  to  the 
people  and  the  army,  Bonaparte,  eluding 
those  whose  duty  it  was  to  watch  him,  set 
sail,  and  on  the  ist  of  March  he  reached 
Cannes,  whence  he  immediately  marched, 
gaining  recruits  at  every  step,  to  Paris. 

At  Lyons  he  began  to  issue  his  impromptu 
addresses,  and  they  were  in  his  best  style. 

"  People  of  France,"  ran  one,  "  I  am  re 
freshed,  and  have  returned  to  resume  busi 
ness  at  the  old  stand.  March  2ist  will  be 
bargain  day,  and  I  have  on  hand  a  select 
assortment  of  second-hand  goods.  One 
king,  one  aristocracy,  much  worn  and 


ELBA — WATERLOO — ST.  HELENA    229 

slightly  dog-eared,  and  a  monarchy 
will  be  disposed  of  at  less  than  cost. 
Come  early  and  avoid  the  rush.  A 
dukedom  will  be  given  away  with 
every  purchase.  Do  not  forget  the 
address — The  Tuileries,  Paris." 

This  was  signed  "  Napoleon,  Em 
peror."  Its  effect  was  instantane 
ous,  and  the  appointment  was  faith 
fully  kept,  for  on  the  evening  of 
March  2oth  the  Emperor,  amid 
great  enthusiasm,  entered  the  Tui 
leries,  where  he  was  met  by  all  his 
old  friends,  including  Fouche. 

"  Fouche/'  he  said,  as  he  entered 
the  throne-room,  "give  my  card  to 
Louis  the  XVIII.,  and  ask  him  if 
his  luggage  is  ready.  Make  out 
his  bill,  and  when  he  has  paid  it, 
tell  him  that  I  have  ordered  the 
6: 10  train  to  start  at  9:48.  He  can 
easily  catch  it." 


230 


MR.  BONAPARTE   OF   CORSICA 


"He  has  already  departed,  Sire,"  returned 
Fouche.  "  He  had  an  imperative  engage 
ment  in  the  Netherlands.  In  his  haste  he 
left  his  crown  hanging  on  the  hat-rack  in 
the  hall." 

"Well,  send  it  to  him,"  replied  Bona 
parte.  "  I  don't  want  his  crown.  I  want 


ELBA— WATERLOO— ST.  HELENA         23! 

my  own.  It  shall  never  be  said  that  I 
robbed  a  poor  fellow  out  of  work  of  his 
hat." 

Settled  once  more  upon  his  imperial 
throne,  the  main  question  which  had  pre 
viously  agitated  the  Emperor  and  his  ad 
visers,  and  particularly  his  stage-manager, 
Fouche,  whom  he  now  restored  to  his  old 
office,  came  up  once  more.  "  What  next  ?" 
and  it  was  harder  to  answer  than  ever,  for 
Bonaparte's  mind  was  no  longer  alert.  He 
was  listless  and  given  to  delay,  and,  worst  of 
all,  invariably  sleepy.  It  was  evident  that 
Elba  had  not  proved  as  restful  as  had  been 
hoped. 

"  You  should  not  have  returned,"  said 
Fouche,  firmly.  "  America  was  the  field 
for  you.  That's  where  all  great  actors  go 
sooner  or  later,  and  they  make  fortunes.  A 
season  in  New  York  would  have  made  you 
a  new  man.  As  it  is  you  are  an  old  man. 
It  seems  to  me  that  if  an  Irishman  can 


232  MR.  BONAPARTE  OF  CORSICA 

leave  Queenstown  with  nothing  but  his 
brogue  and  the  clothes  on  his  back  and  be 
come  an  alderman  of  New  York  or  Chicago 
inside  of  two  years,  you  with  all  the  adver 
tising  you've  had  ought  to  be  able  to  get 
into  Congress  anyhow — you've  got  money 
enough  for  the  Senate." 

"But  they  are  not  my  children,  those 
Americans,"  remonstrated  Napoleon,  rub 
bing  his  eyes  sleepily. 

"Well,  France  isn't  the  family  affair  it  once 
was,  either,"  retorted  Fouche,  "  and  you'll 
find  it  out  before  long.  However,  we've 
got  to  do  the  best  we  can.  Swear  off  your 
old  ways  and  come  out  as  a  man  of  Peace. 
Flatter  the  English,  and  by  all  means  don't 
ask  your  mother-in-law  Francis  Joseph  to 
send  back  the  only  woman  you  ever  loved. 
He's  got  her  in  Vienna,  and  he's  going  to 
keep  her  if  he  has  to  put  her  in  a  safe-de 
posit  vault." 

It  would  have  been  well  for  Napoleon 


ELBA — WATERLOO — ST.  HELENA    233 

had  he  heeded  this  advice,  but  as  he  walked 
about  the  Tuileries  alone,  and  listened  in 
vain  for  the  King  of  Rome's  demands  for 
more  candy,  and  failed  to  see  that  interest 
ing  infant  sliding  down  the  banisters  and 
loading  his  toy  cannons  with  his  mother's 
face-powder,  he  was  oppressed  by  a  sense 
of  loneliness,  and  could  not  resist  the 
temptation  to  send  for  them. 

"  This  will  be  the  last  chip  I'll  put  on  my 
shoulder,  Fouche,"  he  pleaded. 


234  MR.  BONAPARTE   OF   CORSICA 

"  Very  well,"  returned  Fouche'.  "  Put  it 
there,  but  I  warn  you.  This  last  chip  will 
break  the  Empire's  back." 

The  demand  was  made  upon  Austria,  and, 
as  Fouche  had  said,  the  answer  was  a  most 
decided  refusal,  and  the  result  was  war. 
Again  the  other  powers  allied  against  Na 
poleon.  The  forces  of  the  enemy  were 
placed  under  Wellington.  Bonaparte  led 
his  own  in  person,  buying  a  ne^  uniform 
for  the  purpose.  "  We  can  handle  them 
easily  enough,"  said  he,  "if  I  can  only  keep 
awake.  My  situation  at  present  reminds 
me  so  much  of  the  old  Bromide  days  that  I 
fall  asleep  without  knowing  it  by  a  mere 
association  of  ideas.  Still,  we'll  whip  'em 
out  of  their  boots." 

"  What  boots  ?"  demanded  Fouche'. 

"  Their  Wellingtons  and  their  Bluchers," 
retorted  the  Emperor,  thereby  showing  that, 
sleepy  as  he  was,  he  had  not  lost  his  old- 
time  ability  at  repartee. 


'THEY'RE   LIKE  A  PICTURE!'  HE  CRIED,  ENTHUSIASTICALLY" 


236 


MR.  BONAPARTE   OF   CORSICA 


For  once  he  was  over-confident.  He 
fought  desperately  and  triumphantly  for 
three  or  four  days,  but  the  fates  held  Water 
loo  in  store.  Routing  the  enemy  at  Ligny 
and  Quatre  Bras,  he  pushed  on  to  where 
Wellington  stood  in  Belgium,  where,  on  the 
1 8th  of  June,  was  fought  the  greatest  of  his 
battles. 

"  Now  for  the  transformation  scene," 
said  Bonaparte  on  the  eve  of  the  battle. 


ELBA— WATERLOO— ST.  HELENA    237 

"  If  the  weather  is  good  we'll  make  these 
foreigners  wish  they  had  worn  running- 
shoes  instead  of  Wellingtons." 

But  the  weather  was  not  clear.  It  was 
excessively  wet,  and  by  nightfall  Bonaparte 
realized  that  all  was  over.  His  troops  were 
in  fine  condition,  but  the  rain  seemed  to 
have  put  out  the  fires  of  the  Commander's 
genius.  As  the  Imperial  Guard  marched 
before  him  in  review  the  Emperor  gazed 
upon  them  fondly, 

"  They're  like  a  picture  !"  he  cried,  enthu 
siastically.  "Just  see  that  line." 

"  Yes,"  returned  Ney.  "  Very  like  a  pict 
ure  ;  they  remind  me  in  a  way  of  a  comic 
paper  print,  but  that  is  more  suitable  for 
framing  than  for  fighting." 

The  Emperor  making  no  response,  Ney 
looked  up  and  observed  that  his  Majesty 
had  fallen  asleep.  "  That  settles  it,"  he 
sighed.  "To-day  is  the  Waterloo  of  Na 
poleon  Bonaparte.  When  a  man  sleeps 


238  MR.  BONAPARTE   OF   CORSICA 

at  a  moment  like  this  his  friends  would 
better  prepare  for  a  wake." 

And  Ney  was  right.  Waterloo  was  the 
Waterloo  of  Napoleon  Bonaparte.  The 
opposing  armies  met  in  conflict,  and,  as 
the  world  knows,  the  star  of  the  great 
soldier  was  obscured  forever,  and  France 
was  conquered.  Ruined  in  his  fortunes, 
Bonaparte  at  once  returned  to  Paris. 

"  Is  there  a  steamer  for  New  York  to 
night,  Fouche  ?"  he  asked,  as,  completely 
worn  out,  he  threw  himself  upon  his  throne 
and  let  his  chin  hang  dejectedly  over  his 
collar. 

"  No,  Sire,"  returned  Fouche,  with  an  ill- 
concealed  chuckle.  "  There  is  not.  You've 
missed  your  chance  by  two  days.  There 
isn't  another  boat  for  ten  days." 

"  Then  I  am  lost,"  sobbed  Napoleon. 

"Yes,  Sire,  you  are,"  returned  Fouche'. 
"Shall  I  offer  a  reward  to  anybody  who  will 
find  you  and  return  you  in  good  order  ?" 


BATTLE  OF  WATERLOO 


240  MR.  BONAPARTE   OF  CORSICA 

"  No,"  replied  the  Emperor.  "  I  will  give 
myself  up." 

"  Wise  man !"  said  Fouche,  unsympathet- 
ically.  "  You're  such  a  confounded  riddle 
that  I  wonder  you  didn't  do  it  long  ago." 

"  Ah,  Fouche  !"  sighed  the  Emperor,  tak 
ing  his  crown  out  of  his  wardrobe  and 
crushing  it  in  his  hands  until  the  diamonds 
fell  out  upon  the  floor,  "this  shows  the 
futility  of  making  war  without  preparing  for 
it  by  study.  When  I  was  a  young  man  I 
was  a  student.  I  knew  the  pages  of  history 
by  heart,  and  I  learned  my  lessons  well. 
While  I  was  the  student  I  was  invincible. 
In  mimic  as  in  real  war  I  was  the  conqueror. 
Everything  I  undertook  came  about  as  I 
had  willed  because  I  was  the  master  of 
facts — I  dealt  in  facts,  and  I  made  no  mis 
takes.  To-day  I  am  a  conquered  man,  and 
all  because  I  have  neglected  to  continue 
the  study  of  the  history  of  my  people — of 
my  adopted  native  land." 


ELBA — WATERLOO — ST.  HELENA    241 


"  Humph  !"  retorted 
Fouche.  "I  don't  see 
how  that  would  have 
helped  matters  any.  All 
the  history  in  creation 
could  not  have  won  the 
battle  of  Waterloo  for 
you." 

"  Fool  that  you  are  !" 
cried  Napoleon,  desper 
ately,  rising.  "  Can't  you 
see?  Anybody  who 
knows  anything  about 
the  history  of  France 
knows  that  the  battle  of 
Waterloo  resulted  fatally 
for  me.  Had  I  known 
that,  do  you  suppose  I'd  have  gone  there  ? 
Not  I !  I'd  have  gone  fishing  in  the 
South  of  France  instead,  and  this  would 
not  have  happened.  Leave  me  !  I  wish  to 
be  alone." 


242  MR.  BONAPARTE   OF   CORSICA 

Left  to  his  own  reflections  Bonaparte 
paced  his  room  for  hours.  Then,  tapping 
his  bell,  he  summoned  one  of  his  faithful 
adherents. 

"  Monsieur  le    B ,"  he   said,  as   the 

attendant    entered,  "you  have   heard   the 
news  ?" 

"Yes,  Sire,"  sobbed  Le  B . 

"  Do  I  not  carry  myself  well  in  the  hour 
of  defeat  ?" 

"  You  do,  Your  Majesty." 

"  Am  I  pale,  Le  B ?" 

.      "  No— no — oh,  no,  not  at  all,  Sire." 

"Tell  me  the  truth,  Le  B .     We  must 

not  let  the  enemy  find  us  broken  when  they 
arrive.     How  do  I  look  ?     Out  with  it." 

"  Out  of  sight,  Sire  !"  replied  Le  B , 

bending  backward  as  far  as  he  could,  and 
gazing  directly  at  the  ceiling. 

"  Then  bring  on  your  invader,  and  let  us 
hear  the  worst,"  ordered  Napoleon,  encour 
aged  by  Le  B 's  assurances. 


A  few  days  later,  Bonaparte,  having  noth 
ing  else  to  do,  once  more  abdicated,  and 
threw  himself  upon  the  generosity  of  the 
English  people. 

"  I  was  only  fooling,  anyhow,"  he  said, 
with  a  sad  smile.  "  If  you  hadn't  sent  me 
to  Elba  I  wouldn't  have  come  back.  As 


244  MR.  BONAPARTE  OF  CORSICA 

for  the  fighting,  you  all  said  I  was  outside 
of  the  pale  of  civilization,  and  I  had  to 
fight.  I  didn't  care  much  about  getting 
back  into  the  pail,  but  I  really  objected  to 
having  it  said  that  I  was  in  the  tureen." 

This  jest  completely  won  the  hearts  of 
the  English  who  were  used  to  just  such 
humor,  who  loved  it,  and  who,  many  years 
later,  showed  that  love  by  the  establish 
ment  of  a  comic  journal  as  an  asylum  for 
bon-mots  similarly  afflicted.  The  result  was, 
not  death,  but  a  new  Empire,  the  Island  of 
St.  Helena. 

"This,"  said  Wellington,  "will  serve  to 
make  his  jokes  more  far-fetched  than  ever; 
so  that  by  sending  him  there  we  shall  not 
only  be  gracious  to  a  fallen  foe,  but  add  to 
the  gayety  of  our  nation." 


THE   END 
1815 — 1821 — 1895 

T  is  with  St.  Helena  that  all  biogra 
phies  of  Napoleon  Bonaparte  hither 
to  published  have  ended,  and  per 
haps  it  is  just  as  well  that  these 
entertaining  works,  prepared  by 
purely  finite  minds,  should  end  there. 
V  It  is  well  for  an  historian  not  to  tell 

more  than  he  knows,  a  principle 
which  has  guided  our  pen  from  the  incep 
tion  of  this  work  to  this  point,  and  which 


246  MR.  BONAPARTE   OF   CORSICA 

must  continue  to  the  bitter  end.  We  shall 
be  relentless  and  truthful  to  the  last,  even 
though  in  so  doing  we  are  compelled  to 
overthrow  all  historical  precedent. 

Bonaparte  arrived  at  St.  Helena  in  Octo 
ber,  1815.  He  had  embarked,  every  one 
supposed,  with  the  impression  that  he  was 
going  to  America,  and  those  about  him, 
fearing  a  passionate  outbreak  when  he 
learned  the  truth,  tried  for  a  time  to  con 
vince  him  that  he  taken  the  wrong  steamer ; 
then  when  they  found  that  he  could  not  be 
deceived  in  this  way,  they  made  allusions 
to  the  steering-gear  having  got  out  of  order, 
but  the  ex-Emperor  merely  smiled. 

"  You  cannot  fool  me,"  he  said.  "  I  know 
whither  I  am  drifting.  I  went  to  a  clair 
voyant  before  leaving  Paris,  who  cast  a  few 
dozen  horoscopes  for  me  and  they  all  ended 
at  St.  Helena.  It  is  inevitable.  I  must  go 
there,  and  all  these  fairy  tales  about  wrong 
steamers  and  broken  rudders  and  so  on  are 


useless.  I  submit.  I  could  return  if  I 
wished,  but  I  do  not  wish  to  return.  By  a 
mere  speech  to  these  sailors  I  could  place 
myself  in  command  of  this  ship  to-day,  turn 
her  about  and  proclaim  myself  Emperor  of 
the  Seas;  but  I  don't  want  to.  I  prefer  dry 
land  and  peace  to  a  coup  de  tar  and  the 
throne  of  Neptune." 

All  of  which  shows  that  the  great  warrior 
was  weary. 


248 


MR.  BONAPARTE   OF   CORSICA 


Then  followed  a  dreary  exile  of  unevent 
ful  years,  in  which  the  ex-Emperor  conducted 
paper  campaigns  of  great  fierceness,  against 
the  English  government,  which  with  unprec 
edented  parsimony  allowed  him  no  more  than 
$60,000  a  year  and  house  rent. 

"  The  idea  of  limiting  me  to  five  thousand 
dollars  a  month,"  he  remarked,  savagely,  to 
Sir  Hudson  Lowe.  "  It's  positively  low." 


THE   END  249 

"  It  strikes  me  as  positively  high,"  retorted 
the  governor.  "  You  know  well  enough  that 
you  couldn't  spend  ten  dollars  a  week  in  this 
place  if  you  put  your  whole  mind  on  it,  if 
you  hadn't  insisted  on  having  French  wait 
ers  in  your  dining-room,  whom  you  have  to 
tip  every  time  they  bring  you  anything." 

"  Humph  !"  said  Bonaparte.  "  That  isn't 
any  argument.  I'm  a  man  used  to  handling 
large  sums.  It  isn't  that  I  want  to  spend 
money ;  it's  that  I  want  to  have  it  about  me 
in  case  of  emergency.  However,  I  know  well 
enough  why  they  keep  my  allowance  down  to 
$60,000." 

"  Why  is  it  ?"  asked  Sir  Hudson. 

"  They  know  that  you  can't  be  bought  for 
$60,000,  but  they  wouldn't  dare  make  it 
$60,000  and  one  cent,"  retorted  the  captive. 
"  Put  that  in  your  cigarette  and  smoke  it, 
Sir  Harlem,  and  hereafter  call  me  Emperor. 
That's  my  name,  Emperor  N.  Bonaparte." 

"  And  I  beg  that  you  will  not  call  me  Sir 


250 


MR.  BONAPARTE   OF   CORSICA 


Harlem,"  returned  the  governor, 
irritated  by  the  Emperor's  manner. 
"  My  name  is  Hudson,  not  Har 
lem." 

"  Pray  excuse  the  slip,"  said  the 
Emperor,  scornfully.  "  I  knew 
you  were  named  after  some  Amer 
ican  river,  I  didn't  know  which. 
However,  I  imagined  that  the 
Harlem  was  nearer  your  size  than 
the  Hudson,  since  the  latter  has 
some  pretensions  to  grandeur. 
Now  please  flow  down  to  the  sea 
and  lose  yourself,  I'm  getting 
sleepy  again." 

So,  in  constant  conflict  with  Sir 
Hudson,  who  refused  to  call  him 
by  his  title,  and  whom  in  consequence  he 
refused  to  call  by  his  proper  name,  answer 
ing  such  epithets  as  "  Corporal "  and 
"  Major "  with  a  savagely-spoken  "  Dela 
ware  "  or  an  ironically  respectful  "  Mo- 


THE   END 


251 


hawk,"  Bonaparte  dwelt  at  St.  Helena  un 
til  the  5th  of  May,  1821,  when,  historians 
tell  us,  he  died.  This  is  an  error,  for 
upon  that  date  Bonaparte  escaped.  He 
had  fought  death  too  many  times  to  suc 
cumb  to  him  now,  and,  while  the  writers 
of  history  have  in  a  sense 
stated  the  truth  .when  they 
say  that  he  passed  away  in 
the  night,  their  readers  have 
gained  a  false  impression.  It 
is  the  fact  that  Napoleon 
Bonaparte,  like  Dante  and 
Virgil,  passed  over  the  dark 
river  Styx  as  the  honored 
leader  of  the  rebellious  forces 
of  Hades.  He  did  pass  away 
in  the  night,  but  he  went  as 
he  went  from  Elba,  and,  as 
we  shall  see,  with  more  suc 
cessful  results. 

For  vears  the  Government 


252  MR.  BONAPARTE  OF   CORSICA 

of  Erebus  had  been  unsatisfactory  to  many 
of  its  subjects,  mainly  on  account  of  the  ar 
bitrary  methods  of  the  Weather  Depart 
ment. 

"  We  are  in  a  perpetual  broil  here,"  Caesar 
had  said,  "  and  I  for  one  am  getting  tired  of 
it.  The  country  demands  a  change.  This 
administration  doesn't  give  us  anything  but 
dog-days." 

For  this  the  Roman  warrior  had  been  ar 
rested  and  kept  in  an  oven  at  the  rear  of  the 
Erebian  Tuileries,  as  Apollyon's  Palace  was 
called,  for  two  centuries. 

"  The  next  rebel  gets  a  gridiron,  and  the 
third  will  be  served  to  Cerberus  en  brochette" 
cried  Apollyon. 

Thus  matters  had  gone  on  for  five  or  six 
hundred  years,  and  no  one  had  ventured  to 
complain  further,  particularly  in  view  of 
Caesar's  comments  upon  the  horrid  details 
of  his  incarceration  published  several  years 
after  his  release,  under  the  title  of  "Two 


"HE   PASSED  AWAY  IN  THE  NIGHT 


254  MR.  BONAPARTE  OF  CORSICA 

Centuries  in  an  Oven ;  or,  Four  Thousand 
and  Six  in  the  Shade." 

At  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  century,  how 
ever,  the  aspect  of  affairs  had  changed.  Apol- 
lyon  had  spent  a  great  deal  of  his  time  abroad, 
and  had  failed  to  note  how  the  revolution  in 
America,  the  Reign  of  Terror  in  France,  and 
the  subsequent  wars  in  Europe  had  materi 
ally  increased  the  forces  of  the  Republican 
Party  in  Hades.  The  French  arrivals  alone 
should  have  been  sufficient  to  convince  Apol- 
lyon  that  his  attention  to  domestic  affairs 
was  needed,  and  that  the  Americanization  of 
his  domain  was  gaining  a  most  considerable 
headway.  All  the  movement  really  needed 
was  a  leader,  but  there  was  none  to  lead. 

"  Caesar's  book  has  made  us  timid.  I  don't 
want  any  of  it,"  said  Alcibiades. 

"  I've  had  enough  of  public  life,"  said 
Charlemagne. 

"  It's  hot  enough  for  us  as  it  is,'"'  said  all 
four  of  the  "  Three  Musketeers." 


THE   END 


255 


"  We'll  have  to  get  somebody  who  is  not 
aware  of  the  possibilities  of  our  climate,"  ob 
served  Frederick  the  Great. 

"Try  Napoleon  Bonaparte,"  suggested 
Louis  XIV.,  with  a  chuckle,  feeling  that  here 
was  an  opportunity  to  do  one  of  two  things, 
to  get  even  with  Apollyon,  or,  in  case  of  the 
failure  of  the  rebellion,  to  be  revenged  upon 
Bonaparte  for  his  treatment  of  the  Bourbons 
by  securing  for  him  the  warmest  reception 
the  Kingdom  of  Hades  could  afford. 

The  suggestion,  according  to  documents 
at  hand  which  seem  to  be  veracious,  was 
adopted  with  enthusiasm.  The  exile  was 
communicated  with,  and  joy  settled  upon  the 
people  of  Hades  when  word  was  received 
that  Bonaparte  was  on  his  way.  As  we  have 
seen,  on  the  night  of  the  5th  of  May  he  left 
St.  Helena,  and  on  the  loth  he  landed  on 
the  right  bank  of  the  Styx.  A  magnificent 
army  awaited  him.  To  the  Old  Guard, 
many  of  whom  had  preceded  him,  was  ac- 


256  MR.  BONAPARTE  OF   CORSICA 

corded  the  position  of  honor,  and  as  Bona 
parte  stepped  ashore  the  roof  of  Erebus  was 
rent  with  vivas.  Such  a  scene  has  never 
been  witnessed  before,  and  may  never  be 
witnessed  again.  The  populace  flocked 
about  him,  and  strove  to  kiss  his  hand ; 
some  went  so  far  as  to  clip  off  samples  of 
his  uniform  to  treasure  in  their  homes.  It 
was  evident  that  the  government  must  look 
to  itself. 

"What  is  this  noise?"  asked  Apollyon, 
who  had  returned  to  his  domain  only  the 
night  before. 

"  Bonaparte  has  arrived,"  returned  the 
head  Imp,  "  and  the  people  are  in  revolt." 

Apollyon  paled  and  summoned  his  minis 
ters. 

Meanwhile  Bonaparte  had  held  a  council 
of  war,  appointing  Caesar,  Pompey,  Alci- 
biades,  and  Charlemagne  marshals  of 
Hades. 

"  The  first  thing  to  be  done  is  to  capture 


"'WHAT  IS  THIS  NOISE?'   ASKED  APOLLYON ' 


258  MR.  BONAPARTE   OF   CORSICA 

the  coal-yards,"  he  said,  taking  in  the  situ 
ation  at  a  glance.  "  Caesar,  let  the  coal-yards 
be  your  care.  Alcibiades  will  take  the  Three 
Musketeers,  and  by  night  will  make  a  detour 
to  the  other  side  of  the  palace  and  open  the 
sluices  of  the  vitriol  reservoir,  which  I  un 
derstand  run  into  the  Styx.  Pompey  will 
surprise  the  stokers  in  the  national  engine- 
room  with  a  force  of  ten  thousand,  put  out 
the  fires,  and  await  further  orders.  Charle 
magne  will  accompany  me  with  the  army  to 
the  palace,  where  I  shall  demand  an  audi 
ence  with  the  king." 

It  will  be  seen  at  once  that,  granting  the 
success  of  all  these  manoeuvres,  Apollyon 
could  not  possibly  hold  out.  As  the  Hol 
landers  had  only  water  with  which  to  flood 
their  country  and  rout  their  enemies,  so 
Apollyon  had  only  fire  with  which  to  wither 
an  invader  or  a  rebellious  force.  The  quick 
mind  of  Bonaparte  took  this  in  on  the  in 
stant.  He  was  no  longer  listless  and  sleepy, 


THE    END  259 

for  here  was  the  grandest  opportunity  of  his 
life,  and  he  knew  it. 

Fortune  favored  him.  In  Hades  fortune 
was  a  material  personality,  and  not  an  ab 
stract  idea  as  she  is  with,  us,  and  when  she 
met  Bonaparte  on  his  triumphal  march 
along  the  Styx,  she  yielded  to  that  fasci 
nation  which  even  phlegmatic  Englishmen 
could  not  deny  that  he  possessed ;  and 
when  at  this  meeting  the  man  of  the  hour 
took  her  by  the  hand  and  breathed  softly 
into  her  ear  that  she  was  in  very  truth  the 
only  woman  he  had  ever  loved,  she  instinc 
tively  felt  that  he  had  at  last  spoken  from 
his  heart  of  hearts. 

"  I  believe  you,  Bonaparte,"  she  murmured 
softly,  "  and  I  think  I  have  shown  you  in 
the  past  that  I  am  not  indifferent  to  you.  I 
am  with  you — Apollyon  is  doomed." 

Thus  encouraged,  Bonaparte,  followed  by 
his  constantly  growing  army,  proceeded  to 
the  palace. 


260 


MR.  BONAPARTE   OF  CORSICA 


Apollyon  received  him  with  dignity. 

"  I  am  glad  to  receive  so  distinguished  a 
person,"  he  said. 

"Thank  you,"  said  Bonaparte,  "but  this 
is  not  a  society  function,  Your  Highness — I 
have  come  here  on  business,  so  spare  me 
your  flatteries." 

Apollyon  turned  purple  with  rage. 

"  Insolent !"  he  cried.  "  Consider  your 
self  under  arrest." 

"Certainly,"  said  Bonaparte,  calmly. 
"  Will  you  kindly  hand  me  your  crown  ?" 

Apollyon  rose  in  his  wrath,  and  ordered 
his  aides  to  arrest  Bonaparte,  and  to  cast 
him  into  the  furnace.  "  Make  it  a  million 
degrees  Farenheit,"  he  roared. 

"  I  regret  to  inform  your  majesty,"  said 
the  chief  aide,  "  that  word  has  just  been  re 
ceived  that  the  fires  are  out,  the  coal-yard 
has  been  captured  by  the  rebels,  and  five 
adventurous  spirits  have  let  all  the  vitriol 
out  of  the  reservoir  into  the  Styx." 


THE    END  26l 

"  Summon  my  guards,  and  have  this  man 
boned,  then  !"  raged  Apollyon. 

"  It  is  also  with  regret  that  I  have  to 
tell  you,  returned  the  aide,  that  the;  Royal 
Guard  has  gone  over  to  the  enemy,  having 
been  promised  higher  wages." 

"  We  have  Cerberus  left,"  cried  Apollyon, 
"let  him  take  this  base  intruder  and  tear 
him  limb  from  limb." 

Napoleon  burst  out  into  a  laugh. 

"  You  will  excuse  me,  Your  Majesty,"  he 
said.  "  But  Cerberus  is  already  fixed.  We 
poisoned  two  of  his  heads,  and  he  is  even 
now  whining  for  his  life  with  the  third." 

"  Then  am  I  undone,"  moaned  Apollyon, 
covering  his  face  with  his  hands. 

"You  are,"  said  Bonaparte,  "but  we'll 
tie  you  up  again  in  short  order.  We'll  put 
you  on  one  of  your  own  gridirons  and  do 
you  to  a  turn." 

Of  course  this  was  the  end. 

In  three  days  Napoleon  had  made  him- 


262  MR.  BONAPARTE   OF   CORSICA 

self  master  of  the  kingdom,  had  proclaimed 
the  Empire  with  himself  at  its  head.  Apol- 
lyon  was  treated  with  consideration.  His 
life  was  spared,  but  he  was  shorn  of  his 
power.  Bonaparte  sent  him  into  exile  at 
Paris,  where,  according  to  report,  he  still 
lives. 

"  Now  for  a  new  coronation,"  said  the 
victor.  "  Send  for  the  pope." 

"  Not  this  time !"  cried  Caesar  with  a 
laugh.  "  The  popes  have  always  studious 
ly  avoided  this  place." 

"Then,"  said  Napoleon  with  a  smile, 
"  let  Fortune  crown  me.  After  all,  it  has  al 
ways  been  she  who  did  it — why  not  now  ?" 

Hence  it  was  that  at  the  dawning  of  New 
Year's  day  of  1822,  Napoleon  Bonaparte 
opened  a  new  and  most  highly  successful 
career.  His  power  has  increased  day  by 
day  until  now,  when  there  is  evidence  that 
he  has  the  greater  part  of  the  world  in  his 
firm  grasp. 


"NAPOLEON  MADE  HIMSELF  MASTER  OF  THE  KINGDOM' 


264  MR.  BONAPARTE   OF   CORSICA 

Some  years  later  his  beloved  Bourrienne 
arrived. 

"Remember,  Bourrienne,"  he  said,  as  he 
installed  his  old  jand  faithful  secretary  in 
his  new  office,  "  you  have  always  written 
my  autographs  for  me,  and  shall  still  con 
tinue  to  do  so,  only  please  note  the  change. 

9 

It  is  no  longer  Bonaparte,  or  Napoleon, 
Emperor  of  the  French,  it  has  become  Na- 
pollyon,  Emperor  of  Hades." 

And  to  Fouche,  when  that  worthy  ar 
rived,  he  said  : 

"  Fouche,  this  is  different  from  the  old 
show.  That  original  Empire  of  mine  was 
ruined  by  just  one  thing.  I  was  eternally 
anxious  to  provide  for  the  succession,  and 
out  of  that  grew  all  my  troubles ;  but  here, 
as  the  little  girl  said  about  the  apple- core, 
there  ain't  a-goin'  to  be  no  succession.  I 
am  here  to  stay.  Meanwhile,  Fouche,  I 
have  an  impression  that  you  and  Augureau 
took  more  pleasure  out  of  my  misfortunes 


THE    END  265 

than  I  did  ;  wherefore  I  authorize  you  to 
send  for  Augereau  and  take  him  swimming 
in  the  vitriol  tank.  It  will  do  you  both 
good." 

As  for  Joseph,  when  he  heard  of  his 
brother's  new  acquisition  he  reformed  at 
once,  led  an  irreproachable  life  in  Amer 
ica,  whither  he  had  fled,  and  when  he  died 
went  to  the  other  place. 


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